When planning a newsletter campaign for a website, there is always one clear goal in focus: achieving the highest possible click-through and open rates with the newsletter.
There is a good reason for this.
If a high open rate is not achieved, money is wasted with every email sent. When the open rate is poor, everything else should be put on hold so this issue can receive full attention.
If a newsletter shows weak engagement from recipients, fast action is required: the problem must be identified and resolved.
What is a good open rate?
Before moving on to specific tips that can dramatically increase a newsletter's open rate, it is important to clarify what actually qualifies as a good open rate.
And this is where the numbers can vary widely. As a general rule: if the open rate falls below 10%, something is fundamentally wrong. A rate this low is clearly insufficient, and the cause should be identified as quickly as possible.
On average, newsletters achieve an open rate of around 20–30%. This means that roughly one in five recipients opens or reads the email.
The current average open rate across all industries is approximately 20%.
From a personal perspective, this figure is rather disappointing and should be significantly improvable. The goal should be to achieve at least a 30–40% open rate — anything below that is not satisfactory in the long term.
In times of overflowing inboxes and constant distraction, an open rate of over 40% is a very strong performance!
But how can the open rate be improved in practice?
The best tips for improving open rates
The following nine practical tips have proven effective many times over. They are quick to implement and can noticeably improve a newsletter's open rate.
Tip 1: Keep the email list clean
The most important step is maintaining a clean email list. This includes consistently removing all dead or inactive email addresses. Good newsletter software keeps a complete sending history for each address.
If an email address repeatedly generates bounces, the software should detect this and adjust future sending behavior accordingly.
Many newsletter tools offer features to automatically delete inactive or invalid addresses — these should be used on a regular basis.
Alternatively, individual addresses must be reviewed manually, which is extremely time-consuming. Ideally, this task is handled automatically by newsletter software.
Clean email lists almost always lead to better delivery and open rates. They are the foundation of a high-quality recipient list and long-term success.
Tip 2: Avoid spam trigger words in subject lines and content
Certain words are frequently used by spammers and are therefore well known to spam filters. Incoming emails are automatically scanned for these terms.
Although modern email providers are very sophisticated and do not rely solely on keywords to detect spam, they still cannot ignore spam trigger words in subject lines and email content.
If an email contains too many typical spam expressions in the subject line or body, it will either be rejected or end up directly in the spam folder.
And very few people regularly check their spam folder.
Only those expecting an important message actively search this folder. Most people ignore it entirely — which negatively affects the open rates of legitimate senders whose emails simply land in the wrong folder.
Free tools help estimate how likely an email is to be flagged as spam. A recommended tool is EmailChecky. After sending a test email to the provided address, the message status can be reviewed in detail.
The analysis clearly shows where potential issues exist and what should be optimized, allowing problems to be fixed before the newsletter is actually sent.
Tip 3: Choose the perfect sending time
Timing is crucial to the success of a newsletter. How significant the impact can be is explained in detail in this article: The best time to send a newsletter. If a newsletter is sent at the wrong time, it gets lost among countless other emails and is easily overlooked.
The following graphic illustrates how strongly sending time affects open rates:
Anyone looking to boost open rates in the short term should consistently send newsletters at the optimal time. Modern newsletter software, such as GetResponse, usually provides very reliable recommendations for this.
Since many email users read only a fraction of their messages each day, emails that arrive at the right moment are far more likely to be opened.
Tip 4: A familiar email sender
This factor also has a major impact on newsletter success: an unknown or constantly changing sender name. How often does an email arrive from a sender that is not recognized? In many cases, it is ignored or deleted immediately.
An example: An online mattress store is called "Matratzen-Paradies." This exact name should be used consistently as the sender — especially when building a brand is the goal.
After signing up for a newsletter, recipients usually become familiar with the sender name. If it remains consistent, it is immediately clear who the email is from and what kind of content to expect.
Problems arise when the sender name is suddenly changed, for example from "Matratzen-Paradies" to "Cheap Mattresses." The recognition factor is lost, and the email is quickly classified as spam.
A clear, recognizable sender name should be defined once and used consistently. The same applies to the sender email address, which should also remain unchanged.
Tip 5: Use creative subject lines
The subject line is one of the most critical factors influencing open rates. Two examples make this clear:
- Subject 1: Newsletter: 778
- Subject 2: 15% discount on air mattresses for 72 hours
The second option immediately communicates the value of the email — and that is exactly what increases the likelihood of it being opened. It creates urgency, makes the topic clear, and encourages immediate action. Anyone who does not even open such an email is unlikely to be a potential customer.
If it is not immediately clear from the subject line why opening the email is worthwhile, it is often deleted unread.
An uninteresting subject line often results in an email being briefly skimmed and then discarded. This behavior is very common. Successful newsletters almost always share one thing:
An attractive, clear, and curiosity-driven subject line.
This is no coincidence.
It is worth deliberately learning how to write strong subject lines. Success can be reliably measured with any good newsletter software. In many cases, the subject line determines the success or failure of an email. It should also be no longer than 50 characters, as longer subject lines are truncated on many devices.
Tip 6: Use personalization strategically
Current statistics clearly show that even simple personalization can significantly improve email performance. Impersonal messages quickly come across like traditional mass emails.
The reason for this is obvious.
Today's email recipients do not want to be treated like everyone else. They expect a personal approach and content tailored to their needs. Even small personal elements can significantly improve perception.
Personalized subject lines are particularly effective, such as:
- Status update for your order #123456789
- [Name], new features for your Facebook automation tool
- Happy birthday! Here's your gift…
Most newsletter systems support personalization without any issues. At a minimum, the first name should be collected during signup. In B2B environments, it can also be useful to capture last name and gender in order to tailor content even more precisely later on.
Personalization in email marketing will play an increasingly important role in the future — most marketing experts now agree on this. Practical experience also shows the same result: personalized emails consistently achieve better results.
Tip 7: Send newsletters with real value
This point is critical for the long-term success of a newsletter — it's all about the content. New subscribers tend to read the first emails after signing up especially carefully.
The reason is simple:
Recipients are evaluating whether the newsletter delivers real value. If it does not, unsubscribing usually happens very quickly. The key to success is therefore:
Maximum value starting with the very first email.
If newsletters feel consistently boring or consist mainly of sales messages, open rates will inevitably decline. Open rates cannot be improved with low-quality content. When open rates are low, the first step should always be a critical review of previously sent content.
Many senders know their content is interchangeable, yet still do nothing to change it. This is exactly where a major opportunity lies. Those who consistently align newsletters with recipient interests and deliver real value clearly stand out.
The result: every new newsletter is anticipated with excitement — and open rates often rise to over 30%.
Tip 8: Stay top of mind with recipients
Regular emails ensure that the brand and its offers remain present. Two to three newsletters per week have proven effective in many cases.
However, sending emails too frequently can quickly become annoying. If unread emails pile up in the inbox, engagement suffers.
Short welcome sequences are an exception. During this phase, attention is especially high, making daily emails acceptable for a limited number of days.
In the long term, at least one email per week should be sent to the list. Creating high-quality content optimized for recipient interests once per week is very achievable. If necessary, a blog post can be reused in a shortened and adapted format.
Tip 9: Use professional newsletter software
An often underestimated factor is the software being used. For cost reasons, many rely on inexpensive or self-hosted solutions. This frequently comes with serious drawbacks. Above all, deliverability suffers significantly with self-hosted systems.
Since emails are usually sent via standard mail servers, it is not uncommon for only about 50% of messages to actually reach their destination. This means: a large portion of emails is lost before they even arrive in the inbox.
There are very affordable email marketing providers that already allow full access to all features during the trial phase:
- GetResponse is a universal platform for email marketing that helps companies grow by easily creating, automating, and optimizing campaigns. With powerful tools for sending newsletters, creating landing pages, and automating marketing, it turns potential customers into loyal buyers.
- AWeber is a user-friendly email marketing platform that lets businesses design, send, and automate newsletters with ease. Its smart tools help nurture subscribers, boost engagement, and grow your audience effectively.
Professional solutions document the delivery history of every address and automatically respond to issues. They remove inactive email addresses that damage reputation, optimize sending times, and even help create highly effective email campaigns.
A poor reputation leads to increasingly worse delivery rates over time. Fewer deliveries also mean fewer email readers and, ultimately, less revenue.
For this reason, newsletters should not be sent via traditional email programs such as Thunderbird or Outlook. If a proprietary PHP newsletter solution is used, it should at least ensure delivery via external, reputable mail servers.
Conclusion
The tips presented highlight the most effective strategies for sustainably increasing a newsletter's open rate. It is essential to consistently place the needs and expectations of recipients at the center. In information-driven industries, high-quality content with strong added value is particularly persuasive.
In the e-commerce sector, targeted offers at the right time perform especially well. Potential buyers take action when the timing is right.
Segmenting recipients by interests is also particularly effective. When recipients receive only content that truly interests them, open rates increase automatically. Large-scale mass mailings are steadily losing effectiveness.
The future belongs to tailor-made email campaigns. The more personalized, relevant, and content-rich they are, the greater their success. This is precisely the key to achieving above-average open rates.