What is a good email open rate?

Email outreach success all starts with getting your emails opened.

No opens = no conversions.

So, no wonder many email marketers used to obsess over their open rate.

But not anymore…

Due to changes in how some of the big email clients like Gmail work, open rates are no longer reliable.

The average email open rate

According to Constant Contact open rate data, the average open rate is just 36.48%.

Note that this data includes a range of different niches and email marketing methods.

If this seems low, it’s because it is.

Does this mean that anything above 37% is a good open rate?

We don’t think so.

You can do much better than 37%.

However, since there’s no reliable way of tracking your opens anymore, other metrics like reply or click-through rate are better engagement indicators now.

What a good open rate used to be

Anything above 50% used to be a good open rate.

In fact, with lemlist, we used to get excellent open rates of 80% or more:

Unfortunately, nowadays, your open rate can be either inflated or deflated, leaving you none the wiser after checking it.

What the heck happened to the good ol’ open rate? 😢

Open rates have gotten a lot of stick recently.

Because of policy changes, Google and Apple have made it harder to accurately track opens.

Many times the tracking pixel doesn’t get loaded. And other times it gets loaded without the recipient opening your email!

In other words, open rates are no longer reliable.

It’s spurred some email marketers to use other metrics to track success, like reply rate or click-through rate. These metrics now tell you more about your emails’ engagement than the open rate.

How can I improve my email open rate? ⏫

Even though you can no longer accurately track your open rate, it doesn’t mean you can neglect it.

You can still improve your opens by following email outreach’s best practices like:

• Warming up your email
• Having a deliverability work behind the scenes to improve your deliverability
• Completing your technical setup
• Not sending to unverified emails
• Not sending spammy content

Further reading 📖

The email open rate has become a somewhat tricky subject.

As you’ve figured out by now, the email open rate has become a somewhat tricky subject.

Fortunately, there are reliable ways to get the answers you need. Learn more about how to see if someone opened your email in our detailed guide.