Open Rates cut in half

[user410820]

Is anyone having an issue with open rates nearly being cut in half overnight? What is the issue? How are you researching the reason behind it and fixing it?

[William_A]

Hello @user410820 ,

While I can't speak to what would entice your particular contacts to open your emails, there's a few things I'm noticing that might be impacting the emails' deliverability and open rates:

• Very image-dominated: Emails that are mostly, or completely, just an image or images have a higher chance of being spam-filtered. Adding some text can go a long way toward convincing email programs and networks that an email with mostly images (and linked images) isn't utilizing the notoriously sneaky ways phishing and scam emails try to get people to accidentally click suspicious links. Click here for more info regarding image-only emails. 
• A long period of no sendouts, then suddenly several sendouts: Email algorithms track email send frequencies and incorporate that into overall trustworthiness, sending reputation, and other metrics. Unfortunately, if a domain goes a long time without sending out emails, and then suddenly starts sending with regular frequency, it can impact the deliverability for a period of time, until the algorithms reconfigure.
• Unoptimized Subjects: Your subject lines and preheaders are, on their own, very good - straightforward, calling to action, and even including relevant emojis. However some aspects, such as number of words and inclusion of certain "spammy" words can be impacting these subject lines. Click here for more info on optimizing subject lines and other header elements. 
• Sending to your full list: Based on your number of contacts, your open rates may be improved by sending more narrowly-focused emails to subsets of your full contact list.

Delivery can have a lot of variables, from elements on our side, on your side, on the recipient's side, and in their email system company's side. Here are some general best practices for delivery. Some additional resources to check out from our Knowledge Base (also available via your account's Help tab), include:

• Improve your email open rates
• Achieving a Good Email Open Rate
• Keeping clean contact lists
• Common things that trigger spam filters

Additionally, after changes to how Google and Yahoo handle email authentication in February 2024, if your account is newly setup for self-authentication, it may require additional time and sendouts to solidify that sending reputation. I would recommend taking a look at our Community's Email Authentication FAQ which goes over email authentication overall, as well some supplemental info on the changes made by those email systems. 

However, I don't want this response to come off as trying to push responsibility for the open rate on a few aspects of your emails. Based on what your open rates were prior to the break and for your first email after starting back up earlier this month, there may be more external factors affecting your emails' delivery and open rates outside of your control. If you're wanting more in-depth, specialized, and technical insight on your emails' current deliverability, it'd be worth speaking with one of our Delivery agents.