Recent data from 2025 suggests only 14.1% of opened emails actually result in clicks. So, your marketing ROI can increase only if more of your campaign emails get opened.
This makes understanding how to increase your email open rate extremely important. After all, email open rate is the first metric that ensures whether your customers have viewed your message.
A low email open rate indicates deeper issues in your email marketing strategy. Without a good email open rate, your carefully crafted email campaign’s performance will plummet.
In this article, we have shared:
- What email open rate is
- Average email open rate
- 12 actionable strategies to increase email open rate.
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What is an Email Open Rate?
Email open rate is a key email marketing metric that indicates the percentage of emails opened by your subscribers.It is calculated by first dividing the number of emails opened by the number of emails delivered.
Then, multiply the result by 100 to get the open rate percentage.
What is the average email open rate?
The average email open rate across industries on a global level is 19.66%.
Here’s a table showing average email open rates by top industries:
| Industry | Average Email Open Rate |
| Non-profits | 54.54% |
| Creative services and agencies | 50% |
| Fashion & Apparel | 38.04% |
| Food & Restaurant | 38.52% |
| Retail | 37.50% |
| Technology | 38.14% |
However, your email open rate may deviate from this average for several reasons.
4 key factors influencing email open rate:
- Industry: Different industries see different engagement rates. For example, nonprofits and education tend to have higher open rates, while ecommerce and retail often have lower averages.
- Demography: Age, location, and device usage can influence how often and when your emails are opened. Mobile users may check emails more frequently.
- B2B vs B2C Business: B2B emails often have higher open rates because they’re usually more targeted emails and sent during work hours. B2C emails may struggle for attention in crowded inboxes.
- Type of Email: Transactional emails (like order confirmations) usually have higher open rates compared to promotional or newsletter emails. Moreover, welcome emails also tend to perform better than generic campaigns in open rates.
12 Strategies to Increase Email Open Rate
Besides the industry standards, increasing email open rate depends on the email marketing strategies you have used in your email campaigns.
Here we have listed 12 strategies
- Maintain a clean email list
- Segment your email list
- Pick the proper sender name
- Write a clear subject line and Preview text
- Personalize your email
- Always provide value
- Avoid spam-triggering content
- Optimize for mobile users
- Get your Perfect Time
- Be Consistent
- Send reengagement emails
- Test, measure, and improve.
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1. Maintain a Clean Email List
An email list with invalid and inactive email addresses will result in a low open rate. In the long term, it will damage your sender reputation and email deliverability.
Moreover, a high number of unopened emails signals poor quality, increasing your chances of landing in spam folders.
How to maintain a clean list:
- Regularly remove hard bounces and use a suppression list to stop sending emails to invalid/harmful email addresses.
- Use double-opt in methods to ensure only interested subscribers sign up through your pop-up.
- Monitor engagement rate and send win-back emails to dormant subscribers. If they still don’t interact, remove them from your list.
Related Reading: 10 Email List Management Software + Best Practices.
2. Segment Your Email List
Sending the same email to your entire list is one of the fastest ways to get ignored. Email segmentation helps you send the right message to the right people.
Segmented emails generate higher open and click-through rates because they’re more relevant.
How to segment your email list to increase open rate:
- Demographic Segmentation: Target based on age, gender, income, or occupation.
Example: Promote using discount emails for school supplies to users aged 18–25, grad students, and teachers. - Behavioral Segmentation: Segment users by how they interact with your emails or website.
Example: Send an abandoned cart recovery email to users who abandoned their cart or didn’t open the last campaign. - Geographic Segmentation: Use location-based targeting to send time-sensitive and region-specific emails.
Example: Announce a seasonal sale only to subscribers in a specific country or time zone. - Email Marketing Funnel-Based Segmentation: Group subscribers by where they are in the email marketing funnel.
Example: Nurture new leads with exclusive content and offers.
3. Pick the proper sender name
Unfamiliar or vague sender names can cause emails to be ignored or, worse, marked as spam. Your sender name plays a crucial role in building trust and increasing your email open rates.
Moreover, a consistent sender name helps build brand recognition over time.
Tips to pick the right sender name for higher open rates:
- Use a recognizable name: Instead of just “Marketing Team”, use “Sarah from Brand name”.
- Avoid generic addresses: Don’t use “[email protected]”. It looks impersonal and discourages engagement.
- Be consistent: Stick to one sender name so subscribers remember you and know what to expect.
- Match your brand tone: For casual ecommerce stores use a first name (e.g., “Emma @ StoreName”). However, for a professional B2B brand might prefer the company name.
Related Reading: Retention Marketing: Strategies + Examples.
4. Write a clear subject line and Preview text
Your subject line and preview text are the first impression of your email. It determines whether someone opens or ignores it. 47% of recipients decide to open an email based on the subject line alone.
Tips for writing subject lines for better open rates:
- Be clear and concise: Tell subscribers exactly what they’ll get. Example: “Your 20% Discount Expires Tonight”.
- Create urgency or curiosity: For example, “Running low on your favorites?” or “Last chance to claim your offer!”
- Use personalization: Include the customer’s name in the subject line. Example, “Anna, you forgot something in your cart”.
- Avoid spammy words: Words like “Free!!!” or “Buy now”. It can trigger spam filters.
Tips for preview text for better open rates:
- Complement your subject line: Use it to give more context, not repeat the subject.
- Keep it under 100 characters: Many email clients truncate long preview text.
Related Reading: 4th of July Email Subject Lines to Skyrocket Your Open Rates.
5. Personalize your email
Today’s customers expect a personalized experience in every touch point from businesses. Personalized emails can increase open rates by up to 26%, according to Campaign Monitor.
Personalization is not all about calling by the first name. Know your buyer persona. Address their desires, values, likes, and dislikes. It will become more effective.
Ways to personalize to increase email open rate using dynamic content:
- Product Recommendations: Based on past purchases, Browse history, wish lists, or even items viewed by similar customers. “Because you loved X, we think you’ll love Y!”
- Abandoned Cart Reminders: Include the specific items left in their cart with images.
- Restock alerts: Send back-in-stock alerts based on users’ search history and past purchases.
- Browse Abandonment: Showcase products they viewed but didn’t add to the cart.
- Localized Content: Show specific deals, events, or store locations relevant to their geography.
- Birthday/Anniversary Messages: Acknowledge special dates with personalized offers or greetings.
6. Always Provide Value
Every email you send must provide added value to the respondents besides the basic communication. Value isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept. It depends on your industry, your audience, and the purpose of your email.
Consistently providing value builds trust, making subscribers more likely to open your emails
You can provide value in the form of:
- Informative content: Teach your audience something new, provide insights, or explain complex topics simply. Include practical advice, how-to guides, and hacks related to your product/service.
- Problem-Solving: Show how your product/service directly solves a common pain point effectively for your audience.
- Exclusive Value: Send special discount emails, subscriber-only content, or even early access coupons to your loyal subscribers.
- Time-Saving Value: Curate information or provide quick links to resources, saving your audience time. You can even offer tools or methods that help them achieve their goals faster and with less effort.
- Community: Make subscribers feel part of a community. Share user-generated content, highlight customer stories, or ask for their feedback.
7. Avoid Spam Triggering Content
Avoiding spam-triggering content is crucial for increasing email open rates. It directly impacts whether your email even reaches the inbox in the first place. If your email lands in the spam folder, it has a zero percent chance of being opened.
Here are some of the ways to reduce spam content to increase your open rates:
- Be Mindful of Word Choice: While you don’t need to avoid every “spam word,” use them judiciously and in context. Prioritize clear, natural language.
- Balance Text and Images: Aim for a healthy text-to-image ratio (e.g., at least 60% text).
- Clean HTML: Use well-coded email templates or a reputable email marketing software that generates clean code.
- Authentic Links: Link to reputable, relevant domains. Avoid excessive links.
- Professional Formatting: Stick to standard fonts, colors, and capitalization. Excessive formatting and shady fonts can look like spam emails.
- Always Include an Unsubscribe Link: Make it prominent and easy to use.
- Test Your Emails: Send test emails to various email clients and use spam checker tools before sending to your entire list.
8. Optimize for Mobile Users
Let’s face it, emails are opened on mobiles more than on any other device. If your email isn’t designed to be viewed on mobiles, recipients will quickly delete it or mark it as spam. This will lead to lower open rates and engagement.
Ways to optimize emails for mobile users to increase email open rate:
- Responsive Design: Ensure your emails automatically adjust to fit any screen size.
- Concise Subject Lines: Keep them 30-50 characters and put important info first.
- Single-Column Layout: Content stacks vertically for easy scrolling.
- Large, Readable Fonts: Use at least 14-16px for body, 22px+ for headings.
- Generous Buttons: Make buttons thumb-friendly with ample spacing.
- Optimized Images: Compress images and always add descriptive alt text.
9. Get Your Perfect Time
When and how often you’re sending the message is as important as your email content. Finding your perfect email cadence contributes significantly to your open rates.
Your ideal timing is dependent on your audience preferences, their geographical location, and demography. It’s best to use a preference center where users can choose how often they want to hear from you.
According to MailChimp’s and Experian’s data, weekdays perform better than weekends.
10. Be Consistent
In email marketing, only consistent efforts can bring in better results and ROI. If you’re consistent in your schedule and content, people will eventually make it a routine to open your emails.
Moreover, interested subscribers will look forward to your emails. As a result, the open rate and engagement rate for your emails will increase. In the long term, you can reinforce your brand identity.
11. Send Reengagement Emails
Inactive subscribers drag down your open rate and hurt your sender reputation. That’s why sending reengagement emails is essential.
If a subscriber hasn’t opened your emails in the last 30-90 days, send them a win-back email. Reengagement campaigns not only improve open rates but also help keep your email list clean. Moreover,
Examples of effective reengagement email strategies to increase email open rates:
- Reminder of value: “We noticed you’ve been quiet. Here’s what you’ve missed!”
- Incentives: “Still with us? Enjoy 20% off your next purchase”.
- Opt-out option: “Still want to hear from us? If not, no hard feelings”.
12. Test, Measure, and Improve
Improving your email open rate is not a one-time fix. It’s an ongoing process of testing and optimizing.
A/B testing (split testing) is one of the most effective ways to identify what works. You can test variations of subject lines, preview text, send times and email content.
Test both personal and brand sender names to see which one gives a better open rate for your audience.
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Wrap Up!
An opened email is the first gateway to conversion. Better open rates mean better engagement, more clicks, and higher ROI. Improving your email open rate isn’t about guesswork.
Increasing open rates is about consistent effort, strategic testing, and always putting the subscriber experience first. From optimizing your subject lines to personalizing content and sending at the right time, every small improvement adds up.
Also Read
- Best Email Automation Software Comparison (2025)
- 15 Best Ecommerce Newsletters to Follow in 2025
- How Much Does Email Marketing Cost in 2025?
Frequently Asked Questions
You’re likely landing in spam folders. Warm up new domains and check deliverability and email authentication settings.
Yes, 47% of people open emails based on the subject line alone, so test and personalize.
Instead of deleting, exclude them from active campaigns and try reengagement sequences.
Use curiosity, urgency, and value-driven language in subject lines to increase email open rate.
Yes, when used sparingly, emojis can draw attention and increase email open rate.
Yes, targeted segments based on behavior, geography, or funnel stage will improve open rates.
Mid-week (Tuesday–Thursday), late morning or early afternoon tends to perform best.
