With over 145 billion emails sent annually, averaging 9,000 emails a year per user, it is a wonder that open rates aren’t single digit. According to the DMA, the average open rate for email is 21%. So I’ve often wondered, “If someone doesn’t open an email in the first few hours it’s received, will they ever go back and open it?”
We recently conducted some analysis to better understand the email open rate curve. The analysis was conducted over several million emails across several industries and hundreds of companies.
So of all the opens that occur over the life of any email, how many occur within the first 24 hours? Approximately 60% of email opens occur in the first day. This is an average across the entire sample of emails. The actual numbers ranged from 50-70%, likely dependent on a number of factors, some of which I’ll discuss later.
That leaves somewhere between 30% and 50% to be opened over the following days. And although it seems counterintuitive, we’ve seen opens of 9-10% three to fourteen days after an email is sent. This could simply be some users not checking their email boxes regularly. Although 74% of users are currently checking their email on their mobile phones, still a percentage of users probably aren’t checking that regularly.
When looking at a sub-sample of the openers, we were able to determine that somewhere between 17-25% emails were opened in the first hour. That demonstrates the immediacy of email. It underscores the critical role subject lines and the friendly from play in getting emails opened. According to Lyris, 85% of marketers believe testing subject lines is the most effective method to optimize emails. Here are four email subject line best practices and considerations for improving open rates:
1. Test the friendly from
The friendly from is the first thing viewers see in an inbox, whether on a mobile phone or 
desktop. Many marketers don’t realize or take the time to modify the friendly from of the emails they deploy. Subscribers are very in-tune with referencing who an email is from, and that plays a role in whether they want to open, read or delete the email. The friendly from establishes credibility and determines whether a user considers the email legitimate. One best practice is to keep the friendly from and from address related. And there is always a case to test different friendly froms with existing and new subscribers to see if open rates can be impacted or if one is preferred.
2. Test personalization
Test personalized data in the subject line to determine user preference. Test incorporating brand name within the subject line. For example, “Activate your Chrysler Town & Country map update today.” We’ve found that leveraging the brand name is a technique that can increase open rates anywhere from 10-30%. Also consider including customer name and past purchase history into your subject lines. Users pay attention to personalized information because it’s about them. Ensure you incorporate the user’s name in a meaningful way, and consider making it an action statement, “Information about [name] account.”
3. Subject line length
Testing the length of subject lines based on a campaign can optimize email open rates. Short subject lines with less than 35 characters have proven to deliver a 40-60% higher open rate. This becomes extremely critical when we consider the role of mobile, and the fact that even fewer characters are actually viewable in many mobile inboxes.
4. Subject line wording
The bottom line is urgency wording works. We’ve found borrowing techniques from response marketing best practices can lift open rates. Leveraging action words, such as “final,” can increase open rates. Also including wording that helps deliver time sensitivity, such as “final offer,” has proven to deliver stronger than average open rates.
It’s getting tougher and tougher to break through users’ inboxes. Consider leveraging optimization techniques as a way to break through and deliver higher open rates.
Topics: Email Marketing
