Open Rate Cheat Sheet

What is an Open rate?

“Opened” denotes the number of prospects who have opened the email and “Open Rate” denotes the ratio of “Opened” to the total number of Prospects contacted. The higher the rate the better.

What are the reasons for a low or declining open rate?

If your open rate is below the industry benchmark, there are definitely some inherent issues with the campaign. Possible reasons might be:

Non-effective subject line
Inadequate testing
Non-personalization of emails
Frequency of emails to the same prospect
Prospect list quality
Irrelevant content
Mobile Optimization
Sending day and time
Customers are not interested in the content
Use of keywords that trigger the spam filter
Inability to keep subscribers engaged
Email list containing bounced email ids
Double opt-in option not used
An issue with the email open tracker
Emails landing in social or promotional inbox

Is it possible that my emails are opened but the open tracking is not working?

There is a possibility that your open rates are good but not tracked effectively. So let's understand how it works
Open tracking works by inserting a tiny one-by-one pixel image in the email before it’s sent to the recipient. Since the good average email open rate relies on the download of such a graphic image, it isn’t 100% accurate. There can be multiple reasons why the image doesn't download

Many ISPs, as well as users, never load the graphics in an email.
Many users prefer to receive emails in text format only. In this case, also, the graphics are never loaded, and although opened, will not be marked as opened.
Users who use mobile to read their emails, read-only the text version of the email. Hence the graphics are never loaded
Non-HTML (text) emails are not tracked at all (as the graphics are not loaded at all in such emails).
Some email-reading applications do not allow open emails to be reported.

How to increase Open Rates within the SmartReach Environment?

Following these simple and easy steps would help to increase the email open rate:

Setting up a holiday calendar, where the campaign gets paused during the holiday season
A/B test with one subject line and different email body templates. Then analyze our template report and share the working template with your team.
Follow up on a regular basis. Set up unlimited follow-ups with SmartReach, the follow-ups auto stops when a prospect or someone from the prospects domain responds. A gap of 3 to 5 days between follow-ups is recommended. Best to limit your campaign to 5 follow-ups.
Sending emails when the prospects are active increases the chance of opens. Use our “Best time to Send” report and accordingly tweak your campaign settings.
Keeping an eye out for spam filters so as to avoid them by using a clear recognizable sender name, verifying the sender and not using deceptive subject lines.
Add the prospect's time zones to the prospect's upload. Send emails preferably during working hours.
Personalize subject lines - SmartReach provides an option to create a custom merge tag.
Limit your daily email sending to 150 emails per email ID. The lesser the number of emails sent, the better the email deliverability.
Use our free campaign Soft-Start when starting a campaign.

Other external factors to improve open rates

Open rates could be increased by following these simple strategies

Creating relevant, useful, and reliable content for the subscribers.
Proper segmentation of prospect list - Imagine sending a proposal for accounting software to the “Head of
Content”. Proper segmentation increases the chance of getting a response
Periodic cleanup of the email list
Use a double opt-in option to ensure interested prospects are part of the campaign
Using optimized images, which would speak for itself.
Optimized content for mobile users
Business email id should be used while sending mails
Subject lines should be :
a) Generate curiosity
b) Be personalized
c) Announce an offer
d) Be humourous
e) Ask a question