Email performance doesn’t start with clicks or conversions but with the open. If your messages aren’t being opened, the rest of your campaign simply doesn’t have a chance to yield the expected results. That makes email open rate one of the clearest early indicators of whether your targeting, deliverability, and messaging are aligned.
Still, many teams struggle to answer a simple question: what is a good email open rate, and how do you consistently improve it?
In this guide, we’ll look at current benchmarks, the most common reasons open rates underperform, and the proven steps sales and marketing teams use to lift results.
Email open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that recipients open. It serves as an early indicator of whether your subject line, sender reputation, and targeting are effectively capturing audience attention.
But how exactly is email open rate calculated?
Most email service providers determine open rate by dividing the number of unique recipients who opened the email by the number of emails successfully delivered. Delivered emails are calculated by subtracting bounced emails from the total number sent.
For example:
In this case:
Open rate = Unique opens ÷ Emails delivered
This method ensures the metric reflects engagement only among recipients who actually received the message.
Now that the calculation is clear, we can examine what open rate benchmarks you should be targeting.
A good email open rate depends heavily on your industry, audience quality, and sending practices. However, most recent benchmarks place the average open rate across industries in the 15%-25% range.
Here’s a practical way to interpret your performance:
For B2B outbound and sales engagement emails, open rates often trend higher when lists are tightly targeted and messages are well personalized. In contrast, large promotional sends to broad audiences typically produce lower open rates.
That said, benchmarks tell only part of the story. Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) and similar privacy features have reduced the precision of open rate tracking. Opens remain directionally useful, but they should be evaluated alongside downstream metrics such as replies, clicks, and conversions.
The key question isn’t simply, “Is my open rate good?”It’s: “Is my open rate improving, and is it strong enough to support pipeline growth?”
When open rates consistently underperform, the underlying causes usually fall into a handful of predictable categories.
Low open rates rarely happen by accident. In most cases, they’re the result of structural issues in your targeting, deliverability, or messaging.
Your subject line is the gatekeeper. If it doesn’t spark interest or signal relevance, the email simply won’t get opened.
Common problems include:
Today’s buyers scan crowded inboxes quickly. If your subject line doesn’t clearly communicate value or relevance within seconds, it gets ignored.
What strong subject lines do well:
Even the best email in the world won’t perform if it’s sent to the wrong audience.
Low open rates often trace back to:
When targeting is off, recipients immediately recognize the email isn’t relevant, and they ignore it.
High-performing teams treat list quality as a primary lever, not an afterthought. Precision targeting consistently outperforms volume-based approaches.
Sometimes your open rate problem isn’t messaging but inbox placement.
If emails are landing in spam or promotions tabs, opens will suffer regardless of how strong your content is.
Warning signs include:
Deliverability problems often stem from inconsistent sending patterns, poor list hygiene, or a lack of proper domain warm-up.
Sales teams using outbound sequences should be especially vigilant here. High send volume without proper infrastructure can quietly erode inbox placement over time.
Timing still matters more than many teams realize.
If you consistently send emails when your audience isn’t active, open rates naturally decline. Similarly, over-emailing can lead to fatigue, while under-emailing can reduce familiarity and recognition.
Common timing mistakes include:
There is no universal “best time” to send, but there is a best time for your audience. Finding it requires testing and data.
Modern buyers can spot mass outreach instantly.
If your email feels generic or templated, recipients often ignore it, even if the offer itself is relevant.
Low open rates frequently correlate with:
Personalization doesn’t mean inserting a first name and calling it a day. It means demonstrating clear relevance to the recipient’s situation.
When emails feel tailored and timely, open rates typically improve.
Improving open rates isn’t about one quick fix. It requires tightening multiple parts of your email strategy, from targeting to deliverability to messaging.
Below are the most reliable levers high-performing teams use.
Before rewriting subject lines, fix the foundation.
Clean, well-segmented lists consistently outperform large, unfiltered databases. Focus on:
A smaller, high-quality list almost always produces better open rates than a massive, loosely targeted one.
If you haven’t cleaned your list in the past 90 days, start there.
Subject line testing remains one of the fastest and most reliable ways to improve open rates. Because the subject line is the first decision point in the inbox, even small wording changes can produce measurable gains.
High-performing teams take a disciplined approach and typically:
In B2B outreach, subject lines that feel personal and specific consistently outperform those that are overly clever or abstract. Decision-makers are scanning quickly, so clarity and relevance usually beat creativity for its own sake.
To implement this effectively, prioritize subject lines that demonstrate clear context and intent, such as:
What matters most is consistency and structured testing. Teams that treat subject line optimization as an ongoing process, not a one-time task, tend to see the strongest and most sustainable improvements in open rates.
Here are some examples of well-optimized subject lines:
Recipients don’t just evaluate the subject line—they also scan the sender.
If your “From” name looks unfamiliar or overly corporate, open rates can suffer.
Best practices include:
Sales engagement platforms like Vanillasoft help teams maintain consistent sender profiles across campaigns, which supports both trust and deliverability.
If your emails are not reaching the inbox, overall campaign performance will inevitably suffer.
Key deliverability improvements include:
Teams running high-volume outbound should treat deliverability as an ongoing operational discipline, not a one-time setup.
Even small improvements in inbox placement can significantly lift open rates.
Instead of relying on generic “best time” advice, analyze your own data.
Start by testing:
Many B2B teams see strong performance mid-week (Tuesday through Thursday), but this varies widely by audience.
The goal is to identify patterns specific to your buyers, not follow generic benchmarks.
Preview text (the snippet that appears next to the subject line) is often overlooked—but it can materially impact opens.
Strong preview text should:
Think of the subject line and preview text as complementary elements that work together to capture the reader’s attention.
When aligned properly, they significantly improve open rates.
Over time, sender reputation is shaped not only by technical factors but also by recipient behavior and engagement patterns.
When recipients consistently open your emails and find them relevant, future open rates tend to improve. Conversely, if messages are regularly ignored or deleted, performance typically declines.
To build stronger positive engagement signals:
Vanillasoft, with its multi-channel approach, can help teams coordinate multi-touch outreach in a structured, controlled manner, through orchestrated cadences consisting of email, phone and other channels. This reduces the risk of over-contacting prospects and supports healthier long-term engagement metrics.
A strong email open rate isn’t defined by a single benchmark. It reflects how effectively your emails reach the inbox, engage the right audience, and support downstream results.
When performance lags, the fix rarely comes down to subject lines alone. Sustainable improvement requires tighter targeting, stronger deliverability, smarter timing, and consistently relevant messaging.
High-performing teams treat email as an operational discipline, measured, tested, and continuously optimized. Focus on these fundamentals, and you’ll build a more predictable email engine that supports long-term pipeline growth.