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Email Open Rate

KPI

Email open rate is the percentage of emails sent by a business that has been opened.

What is email open rate?

The first metric used to determine the success of an e-mail campaign is Email open rate. Once people have opened your email, they will likely read what you wrote.

Email open rate indicates how many people have read your email messages. A high open rate suggests that your subject lines and other marketing efforts effectively get subscribers to view their emails.

Alternatively, a low open rate may mean that your emails aren't getting delivered to the recipient's inbox or are being filtered out as spam. Low click-through rates can also indicate that your subject lines and other marketing efforts aren't compelling enough for people to click through and take action on what you're offering

Despite its importance, it is most valuable when combined with other metrics, such as email click-through and bounce rates.

Read more - 8 Mailchimp metrics to measure your Email marketing campaign success.

How to calculate email open rate?

When marketers send out email campaigns, they want to know how many recipients opened them. Email open rates indicate how many recipients interact with the content of your email.

The email open rate of your campaign can be calculated using the following formula,

Formula of Email Open Rate

For example, if you send 100 emails out to your audience, 10 of them bounce. The number of delivered emails becomes 90; out of these, 60 are opened, giving an email open rate of 60/90 = 0.6. Multiplying that by 100 gives an email open rate of 60%.

What is the industry average email open rate?

Current data shows that by September 2022, all industries should expect an email open rate of approximately 31.50%. This percentage varies widely across industries: make sure you know what's standard in your field.

For a marketing campaign to be considered a success, its Email open rate should fall between 17-28%. Therefore when trying to improve the campaign's open rates, target these numbers.

Here's how industry-specific averages break down.

Business Type

Open Rate (Total)

All Industries-Overall Average

31.50%

Administrative & Business Support Services (billing, phone answering, hiring, etc.)

26.65%

Child Care Services

37.96%

Consulting Services (management, marketing, advertising, blogging)

22.93%

Dining and Food Services

34.27%

Education

34.46%

Faith-Based Organizations

42.71

How to increase an email open rate?

Email Open rate is one of the top 50 marketing metrics every marketer must measure to determine the campaign's success. Here are a few ways to increase an email open rate.

Several factors can influence the open rates for an email campaign, including the quality and relevance of the targeted list and content.

Improving email open rates typically involves optimizing these factors to make the emails more likely to be opened and read by the recipient.

1. Enhance your subject line and pre-header text - The more enticing your subject line and pre-header text, the more likely people are to open your Email.

2. Provide the audience with relevant content - It's essential to ensure your Email's content is relevant and helpful for your audience. If you don't, there's a good chance they won't even bother opening it. 

3. Segment email list - A Mailchimp study found that segmented campaigns perform 14.31% better than non-segmented ones. Segmenting your email list based on their geographic location, purchase history, and identified behavior inside your website is a great way to get more people to open your emails because they're only getting emails that are relevant to them. This means they're less likely to unsubscribe or ignore them altogether.

4.Personalizing the subject line - According to SmarterHQ , 72% of consumers say they will only engage with personalized content emails. Increase your email open rate by 203% by personalizing the subject line or adding powerful words. Personalize emails as much as possible (by including recipients' names in subject lines and body text) and write content related to their interests. The more personal you make an email, the higher your chances of getting a response.

5. Send Email at the most appropriate time - When sending emails, it's crucial to find the time that works best for your ICP. The best way to do this is by sending out emails at different times of the day and seeing what works best for your ICP.

6. Use A/B testing: A/B testing allows testing of different subject lines and email content to see which performs better, so marketers can identify what works and adjust accordingly.

7. Improve your sender reputation: Following email marketing best practices—such as obtaining permission before sending emails and honoring unsubscribe requests —can improve your sender reputation, which in turn will help improve deliverability rates.

Frequently Asked Questions
How to calculate Email open rate?
What is a good open rate for emails?
How do I increase my email open rate?‍
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