Email Open Rate
The Open Rate is the percentage of opened emails in a certain email marketing campaign.
Top email marketing tools or CRMs usually do the Open Rate analytics for you, but here is how it works:
Why Is Email Open Rate Important?
The Open Rate is crucial for the success of your campaign. If the Open Rate is low, all investments put in your email campaign will go to waste. Find the reason why and improve. Perhaps the time of delivery wasn’t set correctly or the subject line wasn’t catchy enough.
The Open Rate is most useful when combined with other metrics, such as click-through rate, response rate, complaint rate, unsubscribers, and spam quantities. It provides feedback for your marketing or sales team on how effective each part of your email is.
What Is a Good Email Open Rate?
It is highly individual. It depends on the industry, your target list, time of delivery and on a million other things.
We have gathered statistics on the average Open Rate across all industries, according to various research performed in 2019.
However, each industry has its own averages, so don’t use these numbers as your benchmark. For example, according to research performed by Campaign Monitor the Open Rate at companies in the Financial Services industry is 18,23%, whereas in the retail industry, this number is at 14,98%.
Remember: only your current results can provide you with a clear, realistic picture.
How to Increase Your Open Rate
- Enhance your subject lines
According to OptinMonster, 47% of email recipients will open your email based solely on the subject line. Adding some valuable content into the subject line can catch the attention of a recipient. - A/B testing
Try different approaches for your subject lines (it’s length, format or content), preheaders text or delivery features (send day, time or cadence). - Segmentation
If your open rate stays low after content optimization, you should look into your contact list. Perhaps it is not a relevant email for them. Qualify your leads, segment them by groups, and clear your list from uninterested and inactive contacts.
Summary
The Open Rate is an indicator that shows how many people open emails from your email marketing campaign.
You can increase an open rate by A/B testing your subject line, qualifying and segmenting your contact list as well as pruning inactive contacts from it.