Opening rate

What is open rate?

Open rate is calculated by dividing the number of unique opens by the number of emails delivered and multiplying by 100. If you send a newsletter to 1,000 recipients, 50 bounce, and 285 open it, your open rate is 30% (285 / 950 × 100).

The open rate is the first success criterion for an email campaign. If recipients don't open the email, they will never see your content or offers.

What is a good open rate?

Average open rates vary by industry and list quality:

• E-commerce in general: 15-25%.
• Well-maintained lists with engaged subscribers: 25-40%
• Transactional emails (order confirmations etc.): 60-80%
• Automated campaigns (welcome emails): 40-60%

An open rate below 15% typically indicates issues with list quality, subject lines or deliverability.

What affects open rates?

The subject line

The subject line is the most important factor. It's the first (and often only) thing the recipient sees before they decide to open or ignore your email:

• Keep it short (30-50 characters) - mobile screens cut off long subject lines
• Create curiosity or show a clear benefit
• Use personalization (e.g. first name)
• Avoid spam trigger words ("FREE!!!", "Hurry up!", excessive capitalization)

Sender name

Recipients need to recognize you. Use your brand name consistently. "Store Name" or "First Name from Store Name" typically works best.

Sending time

When you send affects open rates. Test different days and times. Generally, Tuesday-Thursday mornings perform well for B2C, but it varies by audience.

List quality

A list full of inactive subscribers, incorrect emails and people who never open will drag down your open rate. Clean your list regularly to keep the quality high.

Open rate in Shoporama

Shoporama's built-in newsletter system automatically tracks opens via an invisible tracking pixel. For each campaign you can see:

• Total number of opens and open rate
• Number of unique openers (only counts once per recipient)
• Click-through rate, conversions and revenue

For A/B tested campaigns, you can see the open rate per variant and the system can automatically send the winning variant to the remaining recipients based on the open rate.

Limitations of open rate

The open rate is not 100% accurate:

• Apple Mail Privacy Protection: Since iOS 15, Apple pre-reads emails and reports them as opened, regardless of whether the recipient has actually read it. This can artificially inflate open rates.
• Image blocking: Some email clients block images by default. Since the tracking pixel is an image, the open is not detected.
• Preview panels: Some email clients mark emails as opened when they appear in the preview panel without the recipient actively choosing to read it.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the open rate as an overall trend measure, but supplement it with click-through rate and conversion rate to assess the real performance.

How to improve your open rate

• A/B test subject lines: Systematically test two variations to learn what works for your target audience.
• Segment: Send targeted emails to specific segments. A relevant subject line for a specific group performs better than a generic one for everyone.
• Clean your list: Remove inactive subscribers who haven't opened in 6-12 months. This improves both open rates and deliverability.
• Use double opt-in: This ensures that all subscribers have actively confirmed their interest, resulting in a more engaged list.