Open Rate Drop

[JesusS507]

We've seen our open rates plunge this month. They had been in the high 40s and low 50s. But beginning on Dec. 15 they have dropped to the low single digits. We have not made any changes, and our newsletter is sent nearly every week day.

Has anyone else experience a similar drop during this period?

[William_A]

Hello @JesusS507 ,

It's likely part of the overall holiday inundation of emails that many people are getting. However, if any security, sorting, or other content filtering algorithms were changed on the receiving ends for major email programs, it could be affecting your delivery / open rates. 

I'd advise, first and foremost, getting your account setup for self-authentication, since you have your own domain. Secondly, I'd recommend going through this article on improving open rates, to see if your most recent content hasn't included these elements, or if it marks a sign you need to make some minor tweaks to your content for improved opens. Alongside that, I'd also recommend checking out this article for improving deliverability, to see if your most recent emails have included any common delivery snags. Lastly, I'd recommend checking with our Delivery team, to see if they've gotten any unusual content filtering or bounce logs from your most recent sendouts, or to see what other specialized advice they'd have to offer in regards to setting up self-authentication, or improving delivery.

[JesusS507]

Thanks, William

I will call your Delivery Team now.

[LynnB50]

Hi Jesus, we have had the same issue.  We normally get 43% + open rate and in late Dec. it dropped to 12%.  This has continued for the past three weeks.   It isn't the holidays as last year during Christmas and New Year's our open rate didn't drop at all and maintained a steady 43% + open rate.  It seems like something has changed to cause this.  I'll check with their delivery team and see what they have to say.   

[TrinityW8]

This is exactly what happened to us, we dropped from mid to high 30's to 3 or 4% from the end of November to early December. Honestly, this is a disaster.

[LynnB50]

Domain authentication fixed the problem for us.  Apparently this happens occassionally when our domain hosting server has security updates.  We have to authenticate the domain name associated with the Constant Contact emails. My IT deptarment handled the process.  It looks like support on this forum has links above for self-authentication.