2023 Open Rate - Goals

[FMalik1]

Hi all!

What are your open rate goals and expectations for 2023? Specifically for b2b cold outbound.  

I found this Hubspot article that was insightful but a few years old. Anyone seen an updated version for this year? 

[jolle]

Thanks for the mention, @kvlschaefer! And great question, @FMalik1!

I'm late to the game here, but @franksteiner79 and @danmoyle have already provided a ton of great insights into gauging your open rate and supplementing it with other more impactful metrics. I agree that your click rate will provide a better sense for how leads are engaging with your emails (then you can evaluate conversion rates on your linked assets).

I also strongly recommend against cold email outreach. It has become increasingly prevalent, and I probably get at least 10 unsolicited emails every week. Some of them are already going right into my spam filter, but I do check out the ones that land in my main inbox just to see what the pitch looks like. 99% of the time, I block the sender and mark the email as spam since I never opted into communication and they aren't providing spcific value or anything I haven't already heard in 100 other emails.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who doesn't like getting unsolicted emails, so be mindful of your spam/unsubscribe rates and focus your efforts on building mailing lists that are indeed expecting to hear from you. Better to shift your approach now and get ahead of the curve if you're able so that new laws and regulations don't destroy your outreach strategy!

Those are just my thoughts, but hopefully they're helpful!!

[danmoyle]

Thanks for the tag @kvlschaefer. As others have said, it's a great question @FMalik1. And definitely on a lot of people's minds. I'll +1 @franksteiner79 here on a couple of things. 

Open rates are just a place you can start. It's debatable whether you should even start there because of privacy settings, but the fact is if your open rate is zero, that probably does mean you aren't even able to get links in front of folks. So while you can start there, I'd quickly move on from open rates. Click rates are much better, and rely on your own data, especially when you send them to your website. 

Second, like Frank, I'm not a fan of cold outreach. I know it happens, and there is good ABM and other work going on out there, but it's rare. I'd rather spend money and time on brand marketing than cold outreach. 

Just my two cents. 

[franksteiner79 · Accepted solution]

Hi @FMalik1 

Thanks for tagging me @kvlschaefer.

Here are my 2 cents on open rate goals and cold outbound - caveat this is with my German view of GDPR. 😊

1. Even before Apple's privacy changes, open rates haven't been the most reliable KPIs. Since Apple's changes their have been a number of articles outlining why open rates are dead - check out this MarTech article, The Marketing Eye article, Campaign Monitor article. I really like this explanation in the SocketLabs article - Why Email Open Rates Were Never That Important. "Email opens are measured by embedding a transparent tracking pixel within the email. This tracking pixel is a tiny graphic with 1×1 dimensions, usually placed at the end of the email, so it’s not typically noticed by humans. But when a subscriber’s mailbox provider (such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo) loads the images in an email, the open-tracking pixel is also loaded, which logs an open for the subscriber." So instead of focusing on opens, I would focus on clicks, traffic from email marketing, etc.
2. Now to "b2b cold outbound", it's a very very grey area, at least in my opinion. Under GDPR, which covers all European citizens, I shouldn't receive marketing communication unless I explicitly agreed to receive it. I know more and more countries are implementing similar rules and regulations. So my suggestion would be to create relevant content that resonates with your target audience. Then be clear about what someone signs up to when they download content, then be conscious of not drowning those new leads in an avalanche of "lead nurture" emails.

I hope that helps.

Frank

[FMalik1]

Thanks everyone for your perspective and insight!  I agree there are more meaningful ways of approach.  For now, I was trying to provide perspective to leadership that expectations for cold outbound open rates should be low due to the changes you mentioned. 

Thanks again and I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

All the best,

Farooque

[FMalik1]

Bump 🙂

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @FMalik1,

This a great question!

I would like to invite our community members to see if they have insight.

Hi @jolle, @danmoyle, @christopher-RVO, @franksteiner79 - Do you have B2B cold inbound open rate goals and expectations for 2023? Do you have any advice you could share with @FMalik1?

Thank you!

Best,

Kristen

[Jnix284]

Really great question @FMalik1 , following for insights!