Why am I seeing open rate drops specifically in California?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign states that clean and engaged email lists directly impact open rates. Remove inactive subscribers and focus on reaching those who are genuinely interested in your content.
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog suggests that deliverability issues could be the reason for the open rate drop. Check your sender reputation, IP address, and authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to ensure your emails are reaching the inbox.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares the importance of A/B testing subject lines to optimize open rates. Experiment with different wording, personalization, and offers to see what resonates best with your audience.
Email marketer from Reddit shares a variety of potential factors, including spam filter updates, changes in recipient behavior, list fatigue, and seasonality. They suggest analyzing your data to identify any trends or patterns.
Email marketer from Email on Acid suggests testing email rendering across different email clients and devices. Inconsistent rendering can impact user experience and engagement, potentially leading to lower open rates.
Email marketer from Stack Overflow suggests that being blocklisted is a common cause of email deliverability issues, significantly affecting open rates. They recommend checking if your IP or domain is on any major blocklists.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that Apple Mail Privacy Protection can skew open rate data. The service automatically opens emails, making open rates less reliable as a metric.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that several factors can affect open rates, including sender reputation, subject line relevance, email list quality, and timing. It's important to analyze these factors to identify the cause of the drop.
Email marketer from HubSpot Blog shares that segmentation and personalization play a crucial role in improving open rates. Tailoring your email content to specific audience segments can increase relevance and engagement, leading to higher open rates.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks says that if the open rate drop is due to pre-fetching, those aren't opens you want to be counting anyhow.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that the drop in open rates specifically in California may indicate delivery problems with Google and a decrease in Google pre-fetching of pixels.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that low open rates can result from many reasons and it requires investigation. Some example reasons are poor list hygiene, bad subject lines, spam filtering and various other causes.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that all Google image fetches go through servers controlled by Google, and while the exact location is unknown, some geolocation databases accept locations from large companies that don't correspond to the actual server locations.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that IP geolocation for email opens is notoriously inaccurate. Data showing opens from California may not actually be from that location due to various factors, including the use of VPNs and proxy servers.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from RFC Editor explains the technical specifications of email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These protocols help verify the authenticity of email senders and improve deliverability.
Documentation from Mailchimp explains that geolocation of email opens is not always accurate due to various factors, including VPN usage, proxy servers, and the location of email servers. Open data should be regarded as approximate.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools indicates that delivery issues to Gmail users could cause open rate fluctuations. Ensure you comply with Google's bulk sender guidelines, including authentication, list management, and spam complaint handling.
Documentation from Microsoft highlights the importance of maintaining a good sender reputation when sending emails to Outlook.com users. Low reputation can lead to emails being filtered to the junk folder, decreasing open rates.