Email Marketing Guide – What Is a Good Open Rate for Email?

Email marketing remains one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. If you have invested in it, there are multiple metrics that you can track to evaluate its success. Namely, a good open rate for email indicates that what you do is working on your audience.

In this guide, we will focus on the question "What is a good open rate for email?" and offer you tips on how to increase it.

What Does Email Open Rate Mean?

Before we even start explaining what's a good email open rate, it will be useful to start with what this metric indicates. In more detail, the open rate is the metric that shows you the percentage of recipients who have opened your email. Therefore, it can reveal many invaluable insights. A good open rate for email shows you that your subject lines are compelling to your audience as it motivates them to open them.

How to Measure Email Open Rate

As we've already mentioned, this metric is a percentage of the emails that were opened out of all the emails that were delivered. To calculate the open rate, you must simply use the following formula:

For example, if you have sent 1,000 emails in your email marketing campaign and 250 of them were opened, then your open rate would be 25%. Depending on what is a good open rate for email marketing in your industry, this percentage can indicate a successful or failed campaign.

The Importance of Open Rate in Email Marketing

Understanding what's a good open rate for email is not just a trivial question, but something that reveals that your campaigns are engaging. A high open rate suggests that your subject lines are effective. Moreover, it is a clear sign that your audience is interested in your brand and your content.

On the other hand, a low open rate may be a sign that there are issues with your subject lines. Furthermore, it can also indicate that there are serious underlying issues, such as a damaged sender reputation or a mailing list of low quality. If you recognize these issues early, you can resolve them and enhance the overall performance of your campaigns.

What Is a Good Open Rate for Email?

Now that you know what open rate should be one of the main metrics you track, we can start asking what's a good email open rate. However, the answer to this varies depending on the type of email you are sending and the industry you belong to. For example, a welcome email tends to be the best-performing email that you will send with an impressive open rate of 60%. In addition to this, transactional emails, such as order confirmations, also have high open rates because they are relevant to your audience. Promotional emails may have lower open rates as they compete with numerous other marketing messages in your recipients' inboxes.

But to answer our main question, you need to keep in mind that the average open rate for email marketing in 2024 ranged between 17% and 28% . Therefore, any promotional campaign that you have sent, should be between these percentages to be successful.

Average Email Open Rate 2024 for Different Industries

When evaluating your campaign metrics, you should always consider your industry benchmarks. It is important to recognize that audiences are vastly different from industry to industry, and they will show different behaviors. This way, knowing the standards for your industry will be a useful reference for evaluating your email open rates.

The average open rate for email marketing in 2024 for different industries was as follows:

These benchmarks will help you set realistic goals. If you find that your campaigns are far from this percentage, then you may need adjustments to improve them.

Factors Which Will Affect Email Open Rate

We have already established that learning what's a good open rate for email is essential for your marketing strategies. Nevertheless, the open rate doesn't just magically increase. Several factors significantly impact your email open rates. Once you note them, you can start experimenting with them until you find what works for your audience.

• Subject Line: A compelling subject line grabs the attention of your recipients and entices them to open the email. Find examples of seasonal subject lines, such as Christmas subject lines and Black Friday subject lines to maximize open rates.

• Sender Name: Recognizable and trustworthy sender names increase the likelihood of emails being opened and the chances of your email ending up marked as spam . For this reason, make sure that you are using an invoked name that your audience recognizes.

• Timing: A good open rate for emails also depends on when you send your emails. Choosing the optimal times will boost your open rates as recipients will be more likely to engage with your campaigns. Research indicates that the best time for promotional campaigns is around noon, between 1 and 2 PM.

• Personalization: Adding personalization elements, especially to the subject line will help you boost engagement. If you are wondering what is a good open rate for email marketing, you should also delve into creating a personalized experience for your recipients.

• Segmentation: Divide your email list into groups to send targeted campaigns based on their characteristics. This practice will be particularly useful to you if your brand has a global audience.

• Preheader Text: The preview text that follows the subject line can influence email open rate. Try to find a phrase that complements your subject line and further entices the recipients to open the email.

• Mailing List Quality: Maintaining a clean and engaged mailing list is the answer to the question “What is a good open rate for email”. If your recipients are interested in your emails, then they will consistently open your communication. For this reason, it is important to frequently verify email addresses and update your mailing list.

• Frequency: Finding the right balance in email frequency is a critical part of email marketing. If you send emails daily, then you run the risk of causing subscriber fatigue which has grave consequences.

• Content Relevance: An important aspect is your email content relevance. Ensure that your subject lines reflect your content that caters to your audience's interests. For instance, if you own a clothing brand, send emails that are relevant to fashion and style.

How to Get a Good Open Rate for Email – Best Practice

Knowing what's a good email open rate is the first step toward more successful campaigns. In this section, we are going to focus on the best practices that will elevate your emails and bring you even better results.

#1 Craft Engaging Subject Lines

Create concise, intriguing subject lines that spark curiosity or offer value. Add personalization elements and emojis to make them feel targeted and eye-catching.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ EngageLab has an A/B testing feature that allows you to experiment with different subject lines. This way, you can determine which resonates best with your audience.

#2 Use a Recognizable Sender Name

A recognizable sender name boosts the average email open rate in 2024 and will continue to dominate the 2025 best practices. Ensure that your emails come from a sender name that is familiar to your audience.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ EngageLab allows you to customize your invoke name to maintain brand consistency and build trust with your audience.

#3 Optimize Send Times

The following best practice is to schedule your emails when your audience is most likely to engage with them. However, keep in mind that finding the best times might take some time as you will need to study your analytics.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ With EngageLab's analytics, you can identify optimal send times based on your subscribers' behaviors.

#4 Personalize Content

A good open rate for email often depends on the level of personalization. Address your recipients by name and tailor content to their interests so that the communication feels personal and sincere.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ EngageLab allows you to quickly add personalization elements to every part of your email, even your subject line.

#5 Segment Your Audience

Divide your email list into specific groups based on demographics or behavior. Then, you can create campaigns tailored to these specific users, thus boosting your open rate.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ EngageLab allows you to easily create lists based on your contacts' characteristics.

#6 Maintain a Healthy Mailing List

To maintain a high email open rate, you must ensure that your mailing list consists of engaged contacts. For this reason, you should regularly clean your mailing list by removing inactive or unengaged subscribers.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ EngageLab provides you with advanced invalid email statistics that allow you to maintain a high-quality mailing list.

#7 Create High-Quality, Relevant Content

The main reason why your audience keeps on receiving and engaging with your emails is because they find something of value in your emails. For this reason, you should always strive for high-quality communications, both in the email's design and content.

✨EngageLab Advantage:✨ EngageLab has a rich library of templates for many different scenarios. Select the one that fits your campaign to create an email that looks professional.

Beyond Email Open Rate – EngageLab

While improving your open rate is essential, email marketing isn't the only means of communication that can engage your audience. In recent years, many businesses have chosen to adopt a multi-channel marketing strategy, thus being able to communicate with their customers more effectively than ever before.

EngageLab is one of the top platforms that can start your multi-channel journey. In more detail, this tool offers:

EngageLab is the perfect platform for any company that needs a reliable solution for communicating with a global audience. And what's the best thing about it is that it is highly scalable. The platform's dynamic pricing allows you to add only the number of communications you will need, regardless if you are a small business or a large enterprise.

The Bottom Line

In this guide, you have learned what is a good open rate for email. Follow these best practices to boost your email campaigns by increasing the open rate and other metrics. In EngageLab, you will find a set of features that enable you to employ all of these tactics easily.