Summary
Despite proper authentication and segmentation, welcome email open rates can decline due to several factors. Emails may land in promotions or spam folders, impacting open rates, and generic reputation fixes might be ineffective for promotion-related issues. Sender reputation is crucial, with spam complaints, bounce rates, and engagement metrics playing significant roles. Poor list hygiene, content irrelevance, and lack of personalization also contribute. Variations between email clients and privacy policies skew reporting. Recommended actions include monitoring placement, improving content relevance and value, maintaining list hygiene, implementing feedback loops, and re-evaluating segmentation and sending frequency.
Key findings
- Promotions/Spam Placement: Welcome emails may be routed to promotions or spam folders.
- Reputation Limitations: Standard reputation fixes may not resolve promotion-related issues.
- Sender Reputation: Poor sender reputation impacts deliverability despite authentication.
- List Hygiene: Poor list hygiene negatively affects sender reputation and open rates.
- Content Relevance: Irrelevant or unengaging content reduces open rates.
- Personalization Deficit: Lack of personalization and unengaging subject lines decrease engagement.
- Engagement level of subscribers: High unsubscribe rates for newly engaged users means that the list may contain low quality emails.
- Reporting variations: Email client variations can skew open rate reporting.
- Feedback Loops: Lack of feedback loop monitoring.
Key considerations
- Monitor Placement: Check if emails are landing in promotions or spam folders.
- Improve Content: Enhance content relevance, value, and personalization.
- Maintain List Hygiene: Regularly clean email lists and obtain explicit consent.
- Implement Feedback Loops: Use feedback loops to address spam complaints.
- Re-evaluate Segmentation: Refine segmentation criteria to target engaged users.
- Optimize Sending: Adjust sending frequency and timing for better engagement.
- Re-evaluate reporting Metrics: Look beyond open rates and track click through rates.
What email marketers say
12 marketer opinions
Despite implementing proper authentication and segmentation, welcome email open rates may decline due to several factors. Emails landing in the promotions tab, decreased email content relevance, increased inbox competition, and shifts in recipient preferences can all lead to lower engagement. Other issues include outdated or low-quality email lists, a lack of personalization, unengaging subject lines, a mismatch between subscriber expectations and email content, and sending emails too frequently or without providing value. Also inflated unsubscribe rates, unsubscribes at 0.5% for 0-4 month engaged users is potentially too high, which means people are being mailed that are not engaged enough. Changes in email client privacy policies and variations between email clients can also skew open rate reporting.
Key opinions
- Promotions Tab: Welcome emails may be landing in the promotions tab, impacting open rates.
- Content Relevance: Decreased email content relevance can lead to lower engagement.
- List Quality: Outdated or low-quality email lists contribute to poor open rates.
- Personalization: A lack of personalization and unengaging subject lines can reduce open rates.
- Audience Mismatch: Mismatch between subscriber expectations and email content can decrease engagement.
- Sending Frequency: Sending emails too frequently or without value can negatively impact open rates.
- Reporting Skew: Email client variations (e.g., privacy changes) can skew open rate reporting.
- Unsubscribe Rates Potentially High: Inflated unsubscribe rates for recently engaged users is a sign of lower engagement.
Key considerations
- Testing: A/B test email content, subject lines, and preheader text.
- Audience Understanding: Understand your audience and tailor content to their preferences and expectations.
- List Maintenance: Regularly clean email lists to remove inactive subscribers and those with complaints.
- Re-Engagement: Implement re-engagement campaigns to win back inactive subscribers.
- Content and Frequency: Re-evaluate email content and sending frequency to ensure they provide value.
- Reporting Metrics: Re-evaluate reporting metrics and focus on click-through rates and conversions.
- Audit Segmentation: Audit segmentation, opt-in forms, and list sources for recipients showing complaints.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that personalizing emails, segmenting lists effectively, and optimizing send times can improve open rates. He also suggests cleaning the email list regularly.
14 Feb 2024 - Neil Patel
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email on Acid responds that a possible cause for declining open rates is the placement of emails in the promotions tab of Gmail. Recommends improving preheader text and subject lines for better engagement.
13 May 2025 - Email on Acid
What the experts say
5 expert opinions
Even with proper authentication and segmentation, welcome email open rates can decline due to several expert-identified factors. Emails may be directed to the promotions tab instead of the inbox, potentially lowering open rates, and standard 'fix reputation' processes might not be effective in such cases. Sender reputation remains critical; a poor reputation, stemming from spam complaints or other negative engagement metrics, can lead to emails being filtered despite authentication. Additionally, maintaining list hygiene by removing stale or unengaged email addresses is vital, as sending to these addresses can negatively impact sender reputation and open rates. Implementing and monitoring feedback loops (FBLs) is important for addressing spam complaints and preventing emails from being filtered, even with authentication.
Key opinions
- Promotions Tab Routing: Emails may be routed to the promotions tab, reducing open rates.
- Ineffective Reputation Fixes: 'Fix reputation' processes may not be effective if emails are being directed to the promotions tab.
- Sender Reputation Impact: Poor sender reputation can cause emails to be filtered, even with proper authentication and segmentation.
- List Hygiene Importance: Sending to stale or unengaged email addresses negatively impacts sender reputation and open rates.
- Feedback Loop Necessity: Ignoring feedback loops can lead to emails being filtered, even with proper authentication.
Key considerations
- Monitor Promotions Tab Placement: Check whether welcome emails are being delivered to the promotions tab.
- Improve Sender Reputation: Address factors impacting sender reputation, such as spam complaints and bounce rates.
- Maintain List Hygiene: Regularly clean your email list to remove inactive or unengaged subscribers.
- Implement Feedback Loops: Use feedback loops to identify and address spam complaints promptly.
- Consider alternative to reputation fixes: Generic reputation fixes might not work if emails are in promotions, consider changing the content and value provided.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks explains the generic delivery decision is the promotions tab. Applying "fix reputation" processes may have no impact. Notes that they see open rates in promotions about 10-15% lower than inbox or updates with a lot of their clients
14 Jul 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource highlights the importance of list hygiene in maintaining good deliverability. Even with authentication and segmentation, sending to stale or unengaged email addresses can negatively impact your sender reputation and lead to lower open rates. Regularly cleaning your list to remove inactive subscribers and those who have not provided explicit consent is crucial.
7 May 2024 - Spam Resource
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
According to multiple documentation sources, a drop in welcome email open rates, even with proper authentication and segmentation, can be attributed to several factors. These include emails being routed to the spam folder, users finding the content irrelevant, poor sender reputation, content triggering spam filters, low recipient engagement, and poor list hygiene. The key to resolving these issues involves checking sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools, monitoring bounce and complaint rates, ensuring emails are mobile-friendly and provide value, cleaning email lists, improving content relevance, and adhering to bulk email guidelines.
Key findings
- Spam Routing: Emails may be routed to the spam folder, leading to lower open rates.
- Content Irrelevance: Users might no longer find the email content relevant.
- Sender Reputation: Poor sender reputation can negatively impact deliverability, even with authentication.
- Spam Filters: Content can trigger spam filters, reducing open rates.
- Recipient Engagement: Low recipient engagement can affect deliverability.
- List Hygiene: Poor list hygiene (e.g., unengaged users) contributes to deliverability issues.
Key considerations
- Check Sender Reputation: Use tools like Google Postmaster Tools to check sender reputation.
- Monitor Rates: Monitor bounce and complaint rates to identify deliverability problems.
- Optimize Content: Ensure emails are mobile-friendly, provide value, and are relevant to recipients.
- Clean Lists: Regularly clean email lists to remove unengaged subscribers.
- Improve Content Relevance: Enhance email content to make it more appealing and useful to recipients.
- Follow Guidelines: Adhere to bulk email guidelines to avoid being flagged as spam.
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft explains that bulk emails should adhere to specific guidelines to avoid being flagged as spam. Advice includes proper authentication, list management, and relevant content.
20 Mar 2023 - Microsoft
Technical article
Documentation from Mailchimp shares that deliverability issues can be related to poor list hygiene, low engagement, or content triggering spam filters. Suggested steps include cleaning the list and improving content relevance.
23 Dec 2022 - Mailchimp
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