Email marketing, what to check when open rates drop? – Social BlaBla

When we have an email marketing strategy in place, it is very necessary that we constantly review its evolution, to avoid surprises!

We have to take into account multiple factors or metrics:

• How many subscribers are we getting?
• And how many are unsubscribing?
• The opening rate of our mailings
• As well as the click rate
• and conversions
• SPAM complaints
• Etc

There are many things to review and take into account.

But today I would like to focus on the opening rate, which after all is one of the most obvious values ​​of our email campaigns.

And any drop in opening rates usually worries us a lot.

What do we do in that case?

Go step by step!

• 1) Analyze the opening history of our campaigns

It is normal that, from time to time, some mailings have worse opening rates, for various reasons.

It can be something so simple such as making the topic less interesting to your audience. And as a result, openings are reduced.

In those cases nothing happens.

Therefore what we must do is:

• Analyze the trend, that is, are openings decreasing? Or is it just specific data?
• If we have historical data, analyze previous years and see if there were also decreases on the same dates, which may be due to seasonality, for example.

In this first point what we do more than anything is make sure that the trend we have is not due to seasonality (that from one year to the next it is very easy for us to forget).

• 2) Study if we have introduced changes

Even if we think not, sometimes we introduce slight changes that we think are not important, but they do have it.

For example:

• Small changes in publication schedules, because they are better for us
• Post Frequency Changes
• Or changes in themes

We may see these small changes as improvements, or unimportant things.

But perhaps our audience does not see it with the same eyes.

Imagine a change in the themes, you may think that the change really brings more usefulness.

And yet your audience doesn’t like the new topics.

We have to take these changes into consideration.

• 3) Have we had more SPAM complaints?

We must not forget this either.

If our registration process is double opt-in and we do not do “strange” things, it is normal that we will not have SPAM complaints.

And so we will easily forget to review this point.

But not.

Keep in mind that there will be subscribers who, instead of unsubscribing, mark the newsletters as SPAM to stop receiving them.

Even if your unsubscription process is very easy and simple, it doesn’t matter.

It is also possible that some shipment receives more SPAM complaints, simply because your community does not agree.

For example, imagine that in an email you advertise a third-party product, perhaps your subscribers do not like receiving advertising and mark it as SPAM.

• 4) Do we attract many disinterested subscribers?

Just as we can accumulate SPAM complaints, we can also accumulate subscribers who have lost interest.

Many subscribers simply lose interest, and they don’t unsubscribe.

When they receive the emails, our newsletters, they simply delete them.

That reduces the open rate.

It is normal, it is very difficult for a subscriber to maintain interest for months, years, no matter how well we do it and no matter how good our content is.

What can we do in these cases?

There are several things we can, and generally should, do:

• 1) Use our email marketing tool to detect and separate inactive or uninterested subscribers. You know the ones that don’t open, don’t click, etc. We must do this from time to time, and with reasonable time ranges (for example subscribers who have not opened in 2 months), to avoid subscribers who may be on vacation, etc.
• 2) Send them an email asking them if they are no longer interested, the reason why they have lost interest (we can learn if they respond), and the option to unsubscribe.
• 3) Create a reactivation campaign, trying to send them something different to see if they react and get excited.

Trying to re-interest subscribers who have lost interest is not easy.

If you publish content on a blog, send an email with a compilation of it, for example:

• Summary of July posts

Maybe they will be interested and encouraged to open

Another option is for them to buy again; in the repurchase process, interest in receiving newsletters about the product is usually revived.

• 5) Review of technical issues

This point, although it is towards the end, is also very important.

There are some technical aspects such as:

• SPF, DKIM and Custom Domain Settings
• Check if the domain is blacklisted
• Etc.

In this point The technical team of our email marketing tool can help usand review these aspects, so that we can know if the problem came from there or not.

If this is not the case, we must carefully review the previous points to detect possible causes.

And also the last clear point!

• 6) The subscriber acquisition strategy

I almost forgot this point!

Hahaha, no, I haven’t forgotten, because it’s very important.

We have to keep in mind that our subscriber acquisition strategy directly influences opening rates, as it could not be otherwise.

If we attract subscribers who are really interested in our service or product, or our content, the opening rates will be good.

However, if subscribers are only interested in the lead magnet that we offer, or in the specific discount, or something similar.

They may not be interested later.

That is why if we have introduced changes in our recruitment strategieswe also have to take it into account to relate it to the opening rates we have.

• It is very important to check the open rate!

Let us review the opening rates regularly, so as not to get any surprises.

And above all, we can relate it to the changes that we include in the campaign, to understand if they work or not.

It is also important because if the opening rate drops a lot and we do nothing to remedy it, our engagement also drops, and therefore, it is possible that future mailings will not be delivered well.

Leaving more and more emails in spam.

This makes our opening rate worse.

And in the end it is a circle that feeds itself.

Don’t let it go!

Article by: Jose Argudo for SocialBlaBla.com