Low Email Open Rates? Here’s How We Troubleshoot It
At L.A. Social Karma, we work directly with clients to build and send email marketing campaigns each month. That includes everything from automated flows like welcome and birthday emails to monthly newsletters that promote what’s going on in your business. Across industries, we typically see email open rates between 20% and 40%. But every once in a while, we take over an account where open rates are much lower. When that happens, we don’t assume. We take a step back and look at a few key areas to understand what’s going on.
We start by looking at what happens after someone opens the email. Out of the people who did open, did they click? Did they engage? This helps us figure out whether the content itself is working. If people are opening your emails, even at a lower rate, but not clicking through, that usually points to a content issue. It may mean the message isn’t interesting enough, the offer isn’t clear, or the email doesn’t give them a strong reason to take the next step. Before changing anything else, we want to understand that. If engagement is low, we know the content needs to be adjusted. If engagement is strong, then we shift our focus to getting more people to open in the first place.
Next, we look at subject lines and pre-header text. This is often one of the simplest areas to improve, but it can make a big difference. A common mistake we see is trying to be too clever. Puns or vague subject lines might feel creative, but most people are quickly scanning their inbox. If your message isn’t clear, it’s easy to skip. Clearer, more direct subject lines that create curiosity or highlight value tend to perform better. You want to give someone a reason to open, but they should immediately understand what they’re getting. For example, something like “3 ways to get more customers this month” will usually outperform something generic like “Our February Newsletter.” Testing different subject lines can also give you insight into what your audience responds to. Your preheader text matters here too. It’s the preview line people see next to your subject line in their inbox, and it gives you another opportunity to add context or reinforce why the email is worth opening.
We also look at send time. If your email lands at the wrong moment, it can easily get overlooked. For example, if you’re sending at 6am, your email is already sitting in someone’s inbox by the time they start their day, along with a full inbox of other messages. At that point, most people are just scanning and clearing emails, not taking the time to read. The same goes for Monday mornings. People are catching up from the weekend and working through everything that came in, so marketing emails are much more likely to be skipped or deleted. We’ve found that mid-morning Tuesday -Thursday tends to perform better, especially around 10–11am, when people have settled into their day and are more open to actually reading something. It’s important to look at your own data and stay consistent. When people get used to hearing from you at a certain time, they’re more likely to open. Frequency plays a role as well. If you’re emailing too often, people may start to ignore your emails. If you’re not emailing enough, they may forget who you are. Finding a consistent rhythm helps keep your audience engaged over time.
After that, we take a closer look at your email list and deliverability setup. Email marketing is permission-based, which means people have chosen to hear from you. How that list is built and maintained, along with your technical setup, has a direct impact on your results. One of the first things we check is whether your domain is properly authenticated.
From there, we look at list quality. Some of the most common issues we see are adding contacts who didn’t explicitly opt in, uploading large lists without clear permission, or letting inactive subscribers sit on the list for too long. This doesn’t just affect performance. It can also impact your deliverability. If you continue sending emails to people who never open them, email providers, also known as Internet Service Providers or ISPs like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook, start to pick up on that behavior. Over time, they may treat your emails as less relevant. When that happens, your emails are more likely to land in spam or promotions folders, fewer people actually see them, and your open rates continue to drop. It becomes a cycle that’s hard to reverse if it goes unchecked. The best way to avoid this is to regularly clean your list and focus on engagement. That means removing or segmenting inactive subscribers, using your email platform to identify who isn’t engaging, and setting clear expectations with a welcome email when someone first signs up. It also means making it easy for people to unsubscribe if it’s not a fit. In most cases, a smaller, engaged list will outperform a larger, unresponsive one.
Another detail we review is your “from name.” People are more likely to open emails from someone they recognize. If your sender name feels generic or unfamiliar, it can get overlooked.
It’s also worth noting that open rates aren’t a perfect metric. With updates like Apple Mail Privacy Protection, some opens can be recorded even if someone didn’t actually read the email. That’s why we always look at clicks and engagement to better understand what’s really working.
At the end of the day, low open rates are rarely caused by just one issue. It’s usually a combination of content, subject lines, timing, and list quality. By looking at each of these areas in the right order, you can start to understand what’s actually driving performance and make changes that have a real impact.
If you’re not sure what’s happening with your emails or want a second set of eyes on your strategy, we offer a free 30-minute consultation. We’ll walk through what you’re currently doing and share a few ways to improve performance.
