Why are Yahoo open rates lower compared to Gmail and Outlook for transactional emails?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Quora shares that user behavior varies across platforms. Yahoo users may check their email less frequently or interact with transactional emails differently than Gmail users.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Tips suggests that the demographic using Yahoo might be less engaged with email overall, or less likely to interact with transactional emails.
Email marketer from EmailGeek Forum explains that Yahoo users may have a higher tendency to block images by default, which directly impacts open rates since opens are often tracked via pixel tracking.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that the accuracy of open tracking varies between email clients. Yahoo might have differences in how they handle pixel tracking, impacting the reported open rates.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign says that Yahoo's filters are more complex, which means it can be harder to get emails through to the inbox. Yahoo could be sending emails that end up not being delivered because of a filtering issue.
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that some email providers prefetch images, artificially inflating open rates. Yahoo might not prefetch as aggressively as Gmail, leading to lower reported opens.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests that Yahoo might have stricter spam filters or different algorithms that affect the placement of transactional emails in the inbox, leading to lower open rates compared to Gmail.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that comparing open rates between different receivers to derive meaning is a waste of time, because it does not mean anything, and factors like proxy, cache, prefetch, application, and user behavior will cause different image load behavior.
Email marketer from Gmass shares Gmail aggressively prefetches images and could have led to incorrect open rates.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains that Yahoo users are different from Gmail users and fewer Yahoo users are interacting with their mailboxes, resulting in lower automatic image fetches. Additionally, more Yahoo users have explicitly blocked image loading. Open rates don't accurately reflect how many users are actually seeing the emails.
Expert from Word to the Wise responds by explaining that Yahoo Mail user engagement rates are generally lower than Gmail and Outlook, influenced by diverse user demographics and behavior.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that Yahoo's stricter DMARC policy, especially regarding 'p=reject', may cause some transactional emails to be rejected if they're not properly authenticated (SPF/DKIM aligned). This can affect open rates because the emails never reach the inbox.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft explains the images setting within outlook are controlled at the user level and have changed over time. The image settings being enabled or disabled directly impact open rates as opens are often tracked via pixel tracking.
Documentation from Mailchimp explains that open rates are influenced by many factors, including image blocking, preview pane settings, and email client behavior. Different email clients handle these factors differently, leading to variations in open rates.
Documentation from SendGrid states that engagement rates can differ significantly between ISPs (Internet Service Providers) due to varying user demographics, spam filtering techniques, and inbox placement algorithms. This explains why Yahoo's open rates might be lower.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that Yahoo has aggressive spam filtering, which may result in some legitimate transactional emails being filtered out or placed in less prominent sections of the inbox, thereby impacting open rates.