Opening rate

What is the open rate?

The 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 measure of success for an email campaign. If recipients don’t open the email, they’ll never see your content or your 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 problems with list quality, subject lines, or deliverability.

What affects the open rate?

The subject line

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

• Keep it short (30–50 characters)—mobile screens cut off long subject lines
• Pique curiosity or highlight a clear benefit
• Use personalization (e.g., the recipient’s first name)
• Avoid spam trigger words (“FREE!!!,” “Hurry up!,” excessive use of capital letters)

Sender Name

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

Send Time

When you send affects the open rate. Test different days and times. Generally, Tuesday through Thursday mornings perform well for B2C, but this varies by target audience.

List Quality

A list filled with inactive subscribers, incorrect email addresses, and people who never open your emails will drag down your open rate. Clean your list regularly to maintain high quality.

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 (counts only once per recipient)
• Click-through rate, conversions, and revenue

For A/B-tested campaigns, you can view 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 the 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 them. 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 recorded.
• Preview Panels: Some email clients mark emails as opened when they appear in the preview panel, even if the recipient hasn’t actively chosen to read it.

Therefore, it’s recommended to use the open rate as an overall trend metric, but supplement it with click-through rate and conversion rate to assess actual 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 sent to everyone.
• Clean up your list: Remove inactive subscribers who haven’t opened an email in 6–12 months. This improves both the open rate and deliverability.
• Use double opt-in: This ensures that all subscribers have actively confirmed their interest, resulting in a more engaged list.