Open rates on our Email Campaigns have significantly dropped

[MBasemera]

Hi 

In the past 3 months, our email open rate has dropped significantly. Specific emails that had an open rate of above 30% + are now having only 9 or even less. Big emails that had an open rate of an average of 18-21% are now showing even less than 7 also. 

I have spent months testing this to ensure it is not my domain that is the reason for this poor performance. After April, I used 2 different domains, on both sequences and marketing email /workflows. - Sequences worked much better - meaning my domain is still great. 

To be honest, this sequence is not a long-term solution for a marketing person. Hence I need help to understand why is the email campaigns having low open rates

[Angelica121]

Has anyone else noticed a sudden drop in email open rates recently? We’ve been using HubSpot’s email tool for a while, and our open rates were consistent. However, after the last campaign, we saw:

• Open rates decreased by nearly 40% despite no major changes in subject lines or content.

• No deliverability issues—emails are not landing in spam.

• Gmail seems to be the most affected, while Outlook open rates remain the same.

• Tested other services, and their engagement remains stable.

Could this be related to HubSpot’s email deliverability algorithm or a change in email filtering by Gmail and Yahoo?

[Anurag1990]

@MBasemeraWe are facing the same issue and our open rates as well have dropped significantly over the past one year and I am here posting this because the current state of open rates is the worst I have ever experienced ( has gone down to 3-5% ).

Is there anything that worked out for you in fixing the open rate issue?

Below are the email sending practices that we are following:

1) Domain and IP Check
a) Using 3-4 secondary domains for our Outbound Cold email marketing.
b) SPF DKIM DMARC properly implemented
c) Domain health and reputation is constantly monitored.
d) Constantly warmed up domains and not sending to more than 3-4k contacts per day per domain.
e) Using Hubspot's shared IPs for sending emails

2) Content
a) Subject line, body, email signature, preview text, all are checked for spam keywords.
b) A/B testing of subject lines, preview text, body and email formats ( plain or rich text ) is ongoing.
c) Personalized and catchy subject lines implemented

3) Email Sending practice and Tracking
a) All emails are sent within the recipients time zone.
b) Click tracking is disabled to avoid getting caught in spam filters
c) Ensure that no contact gets more than 1 email from us within a month.

4) Lists:
a) On timely intervals, all lists are validated using email verification tools.
b) Avoiding batching all contacts from same company in one single email to dodge spam filters.

@Opveng @Jnix284 @BérangèreL What is your opinion on my email sending practices and what additional steps I can take to get the best out of our email marketing efforts?

[Jnix284]

@Anurag1990 I think you're doing all the right things, but focusing on the wrong metric. Open Rates isn't a reliable email metric anymore - you could have 100% of your recipients opening your emails and never know it. I would continue following best practices, but start focusing on your Click Rate - are you getting the conversions you want from the email?

I also highly recommend subjectline.com to test your subject lines and Jay Schwedelson's podcast, Do This, Not That

[BérangèreL]

Hi @MBasemera,

Thank you for checking with the Community!

Can you please confirm that you have followed the steps of this article "Manage your email authentication in HubSpot"?

I have also found similar threads that might help you:

- The solution from @Aseemgupta on this post "Poor Email Open Rate"
- The solution from @karstenkoehler on this post "Drop in email open rate"

I also wanted to invite a couple of subject matter experts to this conversation: Hi @Jnix284, @Phil_Vallender and @Alex_Elborn do you have tips to help @MBasemera understand the sudden drop, please?

If you'd like more information about the drop in the email open rate, I would recommend connecting with HubSpot Technical Support, as Support is included in your subscription and they will be able to provide real-time assistance for this matter, including hopping on a screenshare if necessary.

Thank you and have a brilliant day!

Best,
Bérangère

[MBasemera]

Thank you @MarieBeranger . I will review this again. We have been following the email practices, but out of no where, our performance just took a deep. If it was 1 or 3 per cent lower, I would not be concerned - but it went from 20% to less than 7% overall. For even the engaged contacts

[Opveng]

What I would suggest is to check and implement the following things which might improve your open and click rates

1. Check the number of unengaged contacts you have in your CRM (You can create a list and define unengaged criteria like people who haven't opened the last 8-10 emails). You can then exclude this list while sending out emails so that only the engaged ones receive your emails and you get better click and open rates.

2. Create a list of bounced contacts in the CRM and exclude them while sending out your emails.

3. Check the industry standard open and click rates for your industry to check if yours is an anomaly or it adheres to the industry standards.

4. Optimise your Subject lines. That is something which has helped my company a lot because that is the first thing people read when they receive your email.

All the best with your efforts!

[MBasemera]

@Opveng Thank you for this. I like your suggestions. I have created a list of bounced, unengaged contacts, follow up actives and other lists. The only list that we have to keep creating is the softbounces. We seem to have so many soft bounces but we cannot create an active list from this. Is there a way to do this without having to create lists every time?

[Opveng]

Hi,
I'd suggest that you do not exclude soft bounces as soft bounces normally
mean that's there's an temporary issue and not a permanent one like hard
bounced ones. The other lists you created should be enough to take care of
your email delivery and health.

[MBasemera]

@Opveng  We have quite a lot of contacts that are always on softbounce. So I was wondering if they should be always be put in a separate list. If a contact bounces (soft bounce) more than 3 times, add it to a list. Something like this. 

We have the other lists and always exclude those lists in our mailings. 

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

Hi @MBasemera it is likely that if you're sending to the same audience and you haven't made significant changes to your email structure (subject lines, preview text, etc.) that your open rates haven't actually dropped, they've just become more accurate.

With the changes made by email service providers (Apple and Google) to using a bot to scan emails, this triggers an "open" that is being filtered out by HubSpot.

Having stricter parameters in place for what classifies an "open" has had a pretty significant effect for most users. As a result, open rate is also not the metric it once was (if it was ever truly valuable to begin with).

I would focus on your email health score, how are your emails performing for those that are opening? What does your bounce, unsubscribe, and spam rate look like?

You can still work to improve your open rate by using tools like subjectline.com, generating AI subject lines and running A/B tests.

[MBasemera]

@Jnix284 Thank you. I will review this again.