Why open rates may not be as important as you think?
What is the open rate?
When we send an email, we do it by hoping that our contacts enjoy our content, but we do not always obtain the success we expect. To measure the impact of our campaigns, one of the data we have in our hands is the open rate. The open rate refers to the proportion of emails, out of the totality of those sent, that are opened by our recipients.This percentage is calculated in a very simple way: dividing the number of emails opened by the number of emails delivered. It is important to note that the percentage of emails delivered is calculated taking into account the number of messages that reach the inbox of our subscribers, divided by the total number of emails sent.
We'd all love for all of our messages to hit our inbox, but, rarely is one that successful. Therefore, we must remember that some messages we send may be bounced before reaching their destination.
How should we interpret the open rate?
Clearly, the open rate is a vital statistic to ensure that our digital marketing strategy is in good health and that the contact list we have sent our campaign to is strong. This means that our recipients exist (yes, that is always reassuring) and that they have, in effect, given us their permission to send them our emails.From the point of view of our deliverability, it is a parameter to control, at the same level as our bounce rate, block rates, messages marked as spam or unsubscribe from our list.However, our email marketing open rate has much more to tell us and can shed a lot of light on the success or failure of our campaigns if it is studied in the right way. Obviously, it will let us see what proportion of our contact list opens our messages.
What elements influence the open rate?What drives our contacts to open our emails?
The only visible elements in the inbox before opening a message are always the same: the sender's name and in some cases the address from which the email is sent, the subject line and the beginning of our message or pre. header.If the open rate of our newsletter takes off, it means that one or more of one of our elements is liking our readers: a phrase that captures the interest of subscribers, a well-identified sender, a tempting offer mentioned in the subject line, the use of emojis, But, which of them is responsible for the success and which can still be improved?
To be sure of generating a reasonable opening rate, in addition to an updated and interested contact list, doing tests and tests of different parameters (sender's name and address, subject and content) on a portion of our list of contacts prior to final shipment can improve the results.
What is the normal open rate?
It is very difficult to determine exactly what a "normal" open rate is. A "good" open rate will depend on many parameters: the size of our contact list, the sector or industry in which we work, our sending frequency.Nor will an email marketing campaign have the same opening rate as a transactional message. On average, an open rate of between 15 and 25% can be considered correct for marketing emails. For transactional emails, it should be above 30% or 40%, because although the interest in these messages is higher, not all of them are always opened.It is important to bear in mind that in certain sectors (public services, cultural and creative industries, churches ...) there are higher open rates, thanks to the interest they generate in their target audience (> 20%). Consulting, education, health, insurance or restaurant companies may find somewhat lower rates (<20%).
Among the sectors with the lowest rates, we find brands within the world of electronic commerce, human resources, transport or music (<18%), since they are sectors that have a large number of actors, who are not always they are easily identifiable by users.
How can the open rate be improved?
If your newsletter open rate isn't good enough, or is dropping, it's time to do something. In any case, it is essential that we stay fresh and creative to ensure that our open rate is constant and moves within acceptable values. To achieve this, we must pay attention to what our competitors are doing, in order to create messages that stand out and stand out from the rest, but also to learn and be inspired by their successes.
Above all, the main premise will always remain the same and that is testing. The perfect subject line (as well as the perfect sender name) does not exist objectively. Therefore, tests are, today, the only sure way to design and send the best possible subject lines. Do A / B Tests and check the success of different emails using our Campaign Comparator to find the keys to success in your emails.
Another essential element is to make sure that the contact list to which we send our emails is a list interested in our messages. For this reason, it is advisable to clean it from those who have not interacted with our messages in recent months (you can send a reactivation message before, to avoid eliminating someone who does want to be part of your list). In this way, you will improve your email marketing open rate and with it, your deliverability.
Open rates as a misleading metric
Most email marketers are still backward leaning trying to optimize their subject lines for higher open rates. While this can have a positive impact, and more opens is a great thing, actually, they should be focusing on optimizing their click-through rates.
The fact is, open rate is actually a very misleading metric for a number of reasons. Most importantly, an email is only counted as "open" if the recipient also receives the images embedded in that message. And a large percentage of your email users likely have image blocking enabled in their email client. This means that even if they open the email, they won't be included in your open fee, making it an inaccurate and unreliable metric for marketers as it doesn't report their true numbers.
You can get some value of the open rate as a metric if you use it as a comparative metric. For example, comparing the open rates for this week's email sending to last week's email sending (both to the same lists) might give you an idea as the variables are somewhat controlled.
Now that we have understood what it is, we already know that the open rate of our newsletter is not just a piece of information, and that being aware of it will help us improve our email marketing strategy. After all, it is the first indicator of the success of our campaign and the health of our contact list.