Low open rates can signal deliverability issues or campaign optimization opportunities. This article helps you diagnose the cause and implement effective fixes.
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Open rates aren't always the best performance indicator. Your true success metric should be the positive reply rate. There are different opinions on whether you should keep open tracking enabled or if it will increase the reply rate and perceived deliverability with open tracking disabled. The open tracking pixel could technically hurt deliverability, but it is difficult to gauge the extent of it.
There could be plenty of reasons why you could be seeing low open rates for your campaigns, and while most of them are quite simple, you need to ensure your accounts and campaigns are configured in the best possible way to maximize your open rates.
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Common Causes of Low Open Rates
Here are the common reasons why you could have low open rates.
1. Missing or Incorrect DNS Authentication
Without proper SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, email providers don't trust your emails and can negatively impact deliverability.
2. Weak or Generic Subject Lines
If your subject line is generic, salesy, and not targeted, there is a lower chance that people will open it.
3. Insufficient Email Warmup
New domains lack sender reputation. If you haven't warmed up your accounts for at least two weeks before sending cold emails, they are more likely to land in the spam folder, resulting in low open rates.
4. Excessive Daily Sending Volume
Sending too many emails can trigger spam filters and harm your sender reputation. We recommend sending 30 cold emails plus 10 warmup emails per day per account. To maintain a good reputation, reduce your daily send volume to the recommended levels. If you need a higher volume, consider adding more email accounts and distributing the sending accordingly.
5. Spam Trigger Words in Email Copy
Avoid using spam words from this list. You can identify any spam words using our AI Spam Words Checker.
6. Lack of Personalization
Generic emails have a lower chance of being opened. Use variables and personalized lines to make your email more authentic.
7. Unverified Email Lists
Invalid email addresses bounce, which lowers your open rate and damages sender reputation. Use email verification services before uploading leads.
8. Images and Links in Email Copy
Images and links (especially in first emails) can trigger spam filters. If you need to add images and links, it's recommended to add them to your follow-ups and avoid placing them in your initial emails.
9. Open Tracking Disabled
If open tracking is turned off, opens won't be recorded. Check if you have a conflicting setting enabled in the Advanced Deliverability settings that disables open tracking.
10. Missing Custom Tracking Domain.
Using default tracking domains means sharing reputation with all other users. When you add a custom tracking domain, it isolates your sender reputation from other users and provides better deliverability. Always use a custom tracking domain.
11. Domain or Links on Blacklists
If your domain, IP, tracking domain, or any links in your emails are blacklisted, they will negatively impact deliverability. You can check blacklist status on third-party services like Blacklister or our Inbox Placement feature.
12. Using Generic Email Addresses
Generic addresses like info@ appear automated and untrustworthy. It is much better to use name@company rather than info@company.
13. Poor Sending Schedule
Sending emails after work hours, on weekends, or during holidays reduces the chances that they will be seen and opened. Make sure to schedule your campaign according to your leads' time zones. If you have leads in multiple time zones, we recommend segmenting them by time zone and creating separate campaigns for each group.
14. Reputation of email service provider's IP
While most providers (like Google, Outlook, etc.) automatically take care of the sending server's IP reputation, this could be another reason for low deliverability. If your email provider's IP address is blacklisted or has a poor reputation, your emails are more likely to land in spam.
15. Disabled pixel by certain email clients
Certain email clients, such as the stock Mail app on iPhone, have privacy settings that prevent images from loading by default (to avoid tracking). If this occurs, a tracking event will not be triggered. This is an industry-wide issue, regardless of the email open tracking tool you use.
15. Domain Not Pointing to Website
Domains that don't point to actual websites can appear suspicious to email filters. We recommend pointing them to your main business website by adding a CNAME record (ensure you use SSL in this case) or by redirecting the domain to your main website.
16. Missing SSL Certificate
Domains without SSL (HTTPS) appear less trustworthy and can trigger security warnings. Using Cloudflare will give you a free SSL certificate for your domain.