Why have my email open rates declined since February?

Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests to verify pixel placement, asking if content changes in February may have caused clipping, and recommends validating with open rates by mail client provider (MBP).

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor suggests adjusting your sending time and frequency. Sending at optimal times for your audience and avoiding email fatigue can improve open rates.

Email marketer from GMass says you should be regularly cleaning your email list of inactive or invalid addresses because sending to these can damage your sender reputation and lower open rates.

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that decreased engagement can lead to lower open rates. They suggest that if recipients aren't finding your emails valuable, they're less likely to open them.

Email marketer from Reddit user 'EmailGuru' suggests checking your sender reputation. A sudden drop in reputation can lead to emails being marked as spam, thus reducing open rates.

Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that open rate changes often indicate deliverability issues, such as hitting the spam folder, and suggests investigating technical issues like expired SSL certificates for tracking links. He also provides an anecdote about yahoo open rates dropping when their SSL certificate for the tracking links had expired.

Email marketer from Litmus explains that more recipients might be blocking images by default, preventing open tracking pixels from loading. This leads to an underreporting of true open rates.

Email marketer from Stack Overflow user 'EmailPro' recommends checking for any recent changes to your email infrastructure or DNS records. Misconfigured SPF or DKIM records could cause deliverability issues.

Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that several factors influence open rates, including subject line relevance, sender reputation, and list quality. A decline since February could be linked to changes in these areas.

Marketer from Email Geeks suggests checking if the client is on a shared or dedicated IP, as shared IPs can be affected by other senders' practices.

Email marketer from Email Geeks mentions deferral/transient errors at Gmail due to "unexpected volume of unsolicited mail" as a common cause of decreased performance since February and points out Google's explicit statement that they don't track open rates and third party open rates are not accurate.

Email marketer from HubSpot suggests reviewing your segmentation strategy. If you're sending irrelevant content to segments, they're less likely to open your emails.

Email marketer from Email on Acid suggests that if your subject lines have become repetitive or unengaging, recipients are less likely to open your emails, leading to a decline in open rates.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that ISPs and mailbox providers are constantly adjusting their filtering algorithms. A decline in open rates since February could indicate that your emails are now being filtered more aggressively due to these changes.

Expert from Word to the Wise highlights that if your open rates declined, especially if accompanied by other reputation impacts, it could be a sign of list bombing or other malicious attacks. Monitor feedback loops and blocklists to catch reputation and open rate impacts early.

Expert from Email Geeks reminds that an "open" is just an image load. He notes that changes in open rates are interesting, but absolute levels are decreasingly so.

Expert from Email Geeks advises requesting six months of send, open, and click data to confirm the decline and analyze it per domain/MX to pinpoint the problem area. She also advises asking if the ESP changed their reporting of opens and suggests determining if the root cause is deliverability, marketing or a reporting issue.

Documentation from Google states that they've implemented stricter sender requirements in February to combat spam. These changes prioritize emails from senders who authenticate their email and are not sending unwanted mail, which affects inbox placement and thus, open rates.

Documentation from RFC Editor details how DMARC policies, which ISPs started enforcing more rigorously, can impact deliverability. If your emails fail DMARC checks due to misconfiguration, they might be filtered, leading to lower open rates.

Documentation from Apple explains their Mail Privacy Protection feature, which pre-loads email content including tracking pixels. This inflates open rates for Apple Mail users, and changes to it may result in fluctuations in overall open rates.

Documentation from IETF states that incorrect or missing SPF records can lead to emails being flagged as spam by receiving mail servers, thus affecting deliverability and open rates.

Documentation from Microsoft explains that Outlook's junk mail filters are continuously updated. Increased filtering could mean your emails are being sent to the junk folder more often, affecting open rates.