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
• Emails Landing in spam

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. 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 up to 5 variations in email subject lines. Then analyze our A/B test report and share the results with your team.
• Follow up on a regular basis. Set up unlimited follow-ups with SmartReach, your follow-ups auto-stop 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.Preferably create campaigns based on your target audience location. Eg: Sales leaders_Cloud computing_San Francisco.
• Personalize subject lines - SmartReach provides an option to create a custom merge tag.
• Limit your daily email sending to 50 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.
• Activate workflow to add unsubscribes to a global do not contact list
• Follow the points listed on the cheat sheet on how to avoid emails going to spam
  Note: The points are listed in no particular order. All points are important.

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.
• Ensure that your emails look good on mobile devices, as most people open emails on their phones.
• Avoid generic emails like info@ or sales@. People are more likely to open emails from a person.
• Optimized content for mobile users
• Business email id should be used while sending mails
• Your cold email subject lines should:
  a) Generate curiosity
  b) Be personalized
  c) Announce an offer
  d) Be humourous
  e) Ask a question