How can confirming receipt of an email make a difference to the results of a campaign?

Open rates are one of the main KPIs in email marketing, because by knowing if the message has been opened, we can be sure that the subject line and preheader were persuasive enough to draw the reader into the message.

But that’s not all. To ensure that an email is opened, it needs to be in the recipient’s inbox.

First and foremost: deliverability

At this point, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of checking emails. Because only with clean and valid mailing lists will you gain the trust of email providers and be able to deliver messages to the inbox, not the spam box.

This is because validation removes all invalid emails, risky emails and other harmful emails from the lists. As a result, sanitized bases made up of valid emails achieve high deliverability rates.

And speaking of which, how about some valuable tips on how to improve the deliverability of your campaigns?

For those who thought email marketing was dead, Rodrigo Gonçalves, COO of SafetyMails, has created a webinar on deliverability tips.

According to data from Get Response, Brazil has an email opening rate of 18.02%.

This KPI influences all the others, which, in order to be measured, depend on the email having been opened.

But do you know exactly what this KPI means, and how it can influence the performance of an email marketing campaign?

That’s what we’ll see next.

How to confirm receipt of an email: understanding the open rate

You have a contact list, right? When you send a communication campaign to this list, you can see how many people opened the message.

This number is the open rate. In other words, the total number of people from the list you sent to who opened the email.

And how does confirming email receipt improve campaign results? Simply because it all starts with the open rate.

In this sense, it is this KPI that will allow you to see other performances, such as conversion rate, click-through rate, unsubscribes, bounces, among others.

How to calculate the opening rate

To get an opening rate result, simply divide the number of emails opened by the number of emails sent. For example, if your list has a thousand contacts, but only 100 have opened, your open rate will be 10%.

How to increase open rates

If the opening rates are lower than expected, this is a sign:

1. The subject line and preheader aren’t persuasive enough. In this case, you need to rethink your entire approach strategy with the buyer persona.
2. The subject line and preheader may be too long, making it difficult for the reader to see. When the character space is exceeded, the reader doesn’t see the whole message, and this hinders the goal of getting the user to open the email. Subject lines should be around 50 characters long and the preheader no longer than 55.
3. Some elements may not be in line with the persona’s aspirations (use of emojis and exclamation marks, for example). Sometimes the use of an emoji or even an exclamation mark can be overkill for the reader. You have to be careful when using these elements.
4. The sending time may be inappropriate, placing your emails outside the line of sight on the reader’s screen. Many senders sending emails at the same time compete for space on the user’s screen. For this reason, always choose to send at “broken” times, such as 10:02 a.m., for example.
5. The volume of triggers may be too high (which can cause providers’ anti-spam filters to block them). Sending too many mass emails at once will cause ISPs to block them. You need to increase your sending gradually until the campaign reaches the required volume.
6. Messages from your IP or domain may be going to the ISP’s spam folder. Your contact lists may be out of date and therefore full of bounces. Frequent email verification prevents this.

Test to see the best opening rates

A/B testing is extremely important because professionals can use it to predict the recipient’s preferences.

You can test it:

• Different audience segmentations.
• Different versions of subject lines and preheaders.
• Use of emojis or not.
• Personalization with the user’s name or not.
• Use of exclamation marks or not.

How to confirm receipt of an email: completion

Open rates are a thermometer of campaign development. And the size of the list directly influences this KPI, since everything depends on the number of people who will actually open the email.

FAQ