How to Increase Email Open Rates

Improve Email Open Rates with Five Simple Fixes

The average email open rate sits around 19%, and if you’re investing time crafting email campaigns that aren’t even getting opened, you’re leaving revenue on the table. Boosting your open rate is one of the simplest and most impactful levers to pull in your email strategy—because an unopened email is a wasted opportunity.

Let’s break down five actionable ways to get more eyes on your content and improve engagement, without hype or fluff.

1. Be Someone They Know (and Trust)

Start by optimizing your sender name. People open emails from names they recognize. Period.

Don’t send emails from “info@” or “[email protected].” Instead, use a name that feels familiar. If they signed up through a webinar hosted by your team, use “Lena from [Your Company]” as the sender. That small tweak builds credibility and gives the reader context right away.

Also, authenticate your sending domain (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC). This isn’t just a tech checkbox—authentication improves deliverability and reinforces trust with both inboxes and recipients.

2. Make Your Subject Line Work Overtime

Your subject line is the hook. It needs to earn the click.

Think of it as a teaser, not a spoiler. If you’re promoting a new B2B content offer, don’t just say “Download our Q2 Trends Report.” Try something like:

• “What top CMOs are doing differently this quarter”

• “B2B marketing’s new playbook—are you using it?”

• “Your Q2 strategy checklist (you’ll want to bookmark this)”

Subject lines with questions, lists, or urgency tend to perform well—but always test. And personalize. Most ESPs make it easy to include the recipient’s first name or company, and studies show personalized subject lines boost open rates by 26%.

3. Send at the Right Time for Your Audience

The best time to send? It depends. Ignore cookie-cutter advice like “Tuesdays at 10am” and look at your data.

Use your email platform’s analytics to test different send times. Look at engagement across segments—do executives open more at 6am? Do ecommerce subscribers respond better to weekend emails?

Then there’s cadence. If you’re sending too often, people will ignore you—or worse, unsubscribe. Start with weekly or biweekly campaigns, track performance, and adjust based on engagement. Bonus: survey your list and ask how often they want to hear from you.

4. Match Content to Expectations

The fastest way to kill open rates? Deliver content your audience didn’t ask for.

If someone subscribed to your newsletter for LinkedIn ad strategies, don’t start sending them updates about your new product features or TikTok campaign tips. Meet them where they are.

If you serve different personas (say, agency marketers vs. in-house CMOs), use segmentation. Let’s say:

• A CMO downloaded your media buying guide → send them case studies, strategy templates, and ROI-focused content.

• A marketing coordinator subscribed from your blog → start with “how-to” content and foundational tactics.

Segmentation allows you to deliver relevant, useful content that aligns with their journey. It also lets you run cleaner A/B tests and understand what works best, for whom.

5. Improve the Way People Join Your List

Stronger opt-in = stronger open rates.

Start by being clear at sign-up about what subscribers will get—and how often. Then, use tools to validate email addresses and prevent fake signups from forms or lead magnets.

Implement double opt-in where appropriate. Yes, it adds friction, but it also ensures your list is made up of people who actually want your content. That’s the list that will drive your highest engagement.

And don’t forget to regularly clean your list. If someone hasn’t opened an email in 6 months, it might be time to remove or re-engage them with a targeted campaign. A smaller, more active list will outperform a large disengaged one every time.

Here’s your move:
Audit your last few campaigns. Check your sender name, subject lines, send times, audience segmentation, and opt-in process. Pick one of the five areas above to improve this week—and commit to testing.

Your emails deserve to be read. Let’s make that happen.