What do the open rates 70%, 100%, and 0% mean for test accounts?

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign says that high rates on test accounts can be a reflection of the clients and devices used for testing. If your test accounts all use a similar email client and device, this could distort open rates.

Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that 70% could be a very good open rate if the industry has an average of 20%, they explain that many factors affect open rates, including the industry and the target audience.

Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that test accounts often have whitelisted senders, or very permissive spam filters, resulting in artificially high open rates. This is not representative of real-world performance. Conversely, zero open rates might flag problems with deliverability.

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor says that a 0% open rate generally means deliverability issues are stopping your emails from reaching the recipient's inbox. The sender should investigate their sender reputation, authentication, and list hygiene to identify potential problems.

Email marketer from Mailchimp explains that a 70% open rate indicates strong engagement, 100% suggests potential issues with the testing setup or skewed data, and 0% implies deliverability problems or incorrect tracking. They emphasize the importance of list quality and proper authentication for accurate metrics.

Email marketer from Litmus notes that a 100% open rate, especially on test accounts, could indicate caching issues or automated opens. They suggest investigating the technical setup to ensure accurate tracking. It may not always be a good thing.

Email marketer from Reddit user suggests that extremely high open rates might indicate that the test accounts are all on the same network or using similar email clients, leading to skewed results. The tests are not truly representative of subscriber behaviour.

Email marketer from StackExchange user shares that a 70% open rate can be excellent depending on the industry, but contextualizing it with industry benchmarks is critical. 100% and 0% rates are typically anomalies requiring further investigation.

Email marketer from Gmass explains that zero percent open rates indicate that your email likely didn't make it past the spam filter. High open rates could be as a result of your own testing and not an accurate indication of your campaign's success.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that 70%/100%/0% is phenomenal. Then jokes why not open it on all 10 of the test accounts to get a perfect 100% open rate?

Expert from Spamresource explains that high open rates can sometimes be influenced by spam traps that open and click on messages, inflating open rates.

Expert from Word to the Wise stresses the importance of understanding your email metrics and says that high open rates from test accounts need to be interpreted carefully, and one should compare against benchmarks to understand the context.

Documentation from Google Support details that bulk email senders must follow specific guidelines to ensure deliverability to Gmail accounts. Failure to comply can result in emails being filtered to spam or blocked entirely, resulting in a 0% open rate in some test scenarios.

Documentation from SparkPost specifies that monitoring deliverability metrics and adhering to best practices such as proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is crucial for avoiding zero open rates. High open rates from tests may not accurately reflect deliverability for regular users.

Documentation from RFC Editor explains that SMTP server configurations can lead to inconsistent deliverability, potentially causing test emails to be blocked or marked as spam. Proper server setup and adherence to email standards are critical.

Documentation from Microsoft explains that Exchange Online Protection (EOP) filters can aggressively filter out suspected spam, leading to low or zero open rates for test emails. Senders should ensure proper authentication and follow best practices to avoid triggering these filters.