Updated: Feb 3, 2024
How can I increase my open rates?
Your email’s open rate is the percentage of recipients that opened your message out of the total number of people to whom you sent it. It indicates the effectiveness of your email content and design in engaging your audience.
To improve your open rates, focus on your emails’ deliverability and content.
Deliverability tips:
- If you’re sending from a custom domain, sign up for Google's Postmaster Tools to analyze your email performance
- Encourage users to safelist your domain to ensure they continue to receive your emails
- Encouraging replies to your emails can also be a good strategy
- Use a subdomain for sending (like “mail.beehiiv.com” or “newsletter.beehiiv.com”), and warm it properly
- You can find instructions on configuring a custom domain here
Content tips:
- Use a consistent sending time
- If you regularly send at different times of the day, it can make it tough to assess the differences in your open rates.
- Implement A/B testing for your subject lines
- Subject lines are a major contributor to open rates. If you see fluctuations in this metric, it's more than likely related to your subject lines.
“I had a great open rate.. Why did it drop suddenly?”
If your open rates are decreasing, this can be for a number of reasons:
- Long gaps in sending
- For example, going a month or longer without sending an email
- Using a custom domain that was not warmed properly
- Issues with your IP
- Smaller lists are subject to more aggressive swings, as each open is weighted more heavily for the overall open rate.
- For example, you have a list of <100 subscribers, and 10-15 people happen to miss your email that day
Learn more about open rates in the following resources: