Opening an email is the first bridge of communication between the recipient and the sender, which is of great significance to the final conversion.

1. How to calculate the open rate?

In SmartPush, the formula for calculating the open rate is: open rate = number of emails opened/number of emails delivered. If the opening rate of the email is high, it usually means that the subject of the email can attract customers and resonate with customers.

2. Average open rate

So for e-commerce, what is the average open rate? What open rate do I need to achieve to be good? According to a sample survey from Mailchimp, the average open rate of various industries in 2022 is 21.33%, and the average open rate of e-commerce is 15.68%.

3. Improve the open rate

So how to effectively increase the open rate? It may be possible to improve by starting from the following aspects:

1. Pay attention to the box-in rate

Finding the message in the inbox is the last step before the recipient opens it. A higher in-box rate means that the chances of the mail being found and opened by the customer are greatly increased.

How to increase the box rate? How to improve when the box-in rate drops? Find out through this article.

2. Whether the target audience is accurate

Has the recipient actually subscribed to the mailbox? How well do recipients perceive the brand? Is the recipient's email address real and valid?
These issues all have a direct impact on whether recipients will open their mailboxes. Keeping the list accurate and clean is the key to improving effectiveness.

3. Is the subject line of the email attractive?

The best way to learn exactly what resonates with your recipients is to keep trying different things in your emails. An effective email subject line accurately describes the content of the email and impresses the recipient.

In the process of drafting the subject line of the email, refer to the following methods to increase the open rate:

1) Insert personalization variables

Personalized email subject lines have been proven to effectively increase the open rate, and the effect is even better when combined with marketing automation. For example, scenarios such as welcome subscription, order confirmation, and abandoned shopping cart recall all perform well.

2) Keep it short

For many recipients, especially those who read emails on mobile devices, a short email subject line can convey a complete and effective message. We generally recommend not to use email subject lines longer than 9 words or 60 characters

3) Keywords that attract attention

The open rate can be effectively increased by putting in specific keywords, for example, for price-sensitive recipients, emails with "FREE", "50% OFF" and other content are more preferred. Combining the content of the email and conveying the core value to the recipient through keywords is one of the keys to increasing the open rate.

4) Avoid too many punctuation marks and sensitive words

Study the table name, and it is best to use no more than 3 punctuation marks for each email subject. Too much punctuation can make your email look like spam. In the same way, sensitive words like credit cards should also be avoided, especially for sex toys, which are more likely to hit minefields by mistake.

5) Experiment with emoji sparingly

Usually adding emoticons to the subject of the email can make the subject of the email more vivid and have a positive impact. But it should also be noted that whether the emoji can accurately convey the correct information, different versions of the emoji may appear in different operating systems, so it is very important to test.

Conclusion: Continue to iterate through continuous summarization and attempts

If the current strategy doesn't work, it's time to try other combinations. Until the core needs of the recipients are discovered. Paying attention to the data of each marketing campaign, understanding the behavior and preferences of recipients, and then integrating these experiences into the next iteration is the key to continuous improvement in the email marketing process.