How to increase email campaign open rates

Overview

A campaign's open rate is the percentage of a campaign's audience that opened the campaign. Keeping open rates healthy is critical to maintaining a good sending reputation.

Read on to learn about key steps you can take to set your campaigns up for great open rates!

In this guide

• Use relevant and personalized subject lines
• Send to engaged segments
• Send at the right time
• Ensure contacts aren't overwhelmed
• Review reporting after every campaign

Use relevant and personalized subject lines

Campaigns should be designed, from content to audience to schedule, with a specific audience in mind. When you try to appeal to too wide an audience with a campaign send, it usually backfires with low open rates because recipients aren't interested in generic content.

Keep these tips in mind when crafting subject lines:

1. Use personalization (with set defaults) and succinct, concise copy in your campaign subject lines. First names in subject lines can increase open rates, as do other personalized touches like appealing to recipients' specific interests.
2. Give recipients a reason to open your email with a focused call to action. Let them know what they'll get out of opening your email whether it's a sale, coupon, company update, etc.
3. If messages are actually time-sensitive, include language that promotes urgency. You may see increased open rates on messages that implore recipients to open before a deadline that doesn't actually exist, but you will lose your contacts' trust in the long run if you 

Send to engaged segments

Contacts who have recently engaged with your content are much more likely to open more content in the future because they are interested in your messaging. If you're actively trying to increase open rates, you must send primarily to your engaged contacts.

See How to improve targeting with advanced segmentation for tips on creating segments that lead to great open rates.

Send at the right time

Be mindful of your audience's time zones when sending campaigns. You can use tools like Machine Learning Open Predictability and sending in recipients' local time zones to reach your contacts when they want to be reached.

Consider sending at "odd" times, like 1:12 PM instead of 1 PM. It's intuitive to select a sending time that starts on the hour or half hour, which means everyone else is doing it too.

Ensure contacts aren't overwhelmed

Review your smart sending settings to ensure contacts aren't sent more messages than they want. If contacts get overwhelmed by the number of messages they receive from your brand, they will be less likely to open and potentially more likely to unsubscribe.

Review reporting after every campaign

You should regularly review campaign reporting and adjust your campaign strategy accordingly. See Understanding Campaign & Automation email reports for details on everything you'll find in your campaign report, and tips on how to react.