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Sending an email that you've been perfecting for days is a great feeling, but the marketer's high drops after you find that your opening rate is lower than usual. 😢

What happened?

First of all, it is important to know that this happens to almost every marketer. At some point you will see opening rates lower than usual and wonder what went wrong.

Second, it is necessary to be open to fix some problems instead of believing that there is only ONE problem. This is especially true if you have noticed lower opening rates than usual for a few days, weeks or months.

Let's look at 4 different elements of your email that can cause your email opening rate to drop and how you can fix them so that you can go back to the opening rates you saw earlier.

# 1: Your email is too big

If you've successfully sent email and found a high opening rate, but your opening rate has dropped since sending a specific email, this can be a very easy fix.

Emails sent to Gmail addresses will be "truncated" if they are larger than 102 KB. Given that Gmail has 1.5 billion users, this is a problem that should focus on fixing it. If an email is cut off, a Gmail user will not be able to see the entire email like an email with <102 KB. You have to click on "Show entire message" to load the email into your browser.

A Gmail user sees the following when an email is cut off:

Unless a Gmail user clicks the "Show entire message" link, it is NOT considered an open email. From experience we can tell you that Gmail users don’t prefer to click this blue hyperlink. They prefer to have their entire email accessible as soon as they open it.

Make sure your emails are less than 102 KB in size to avoid being cut off.

1. Send a preview that you'll see in Gmail to ensure that the entire message loads without the notification (message truncated)
2. Use an HTML sizing tool to see how big your email is

There are a few reasons why your email may be too large. By removing individual blocks from your email (text, images, spacers, etc.), you can reduce the size of your email. For example, if you have three separate blocks of text in a row and your email is cut off, try figuring out how to put all of the text into one block.

When your email opening rate has returned to where it used to be – GREAT! This shows you that the only reason your opening rate has dropped was because your subscribers avoided clicking this "Show all message" link. Simple solution. 🤓

If your email open rate is still very low, read on to see how else you can increase your open rate.

# 2: You use too many spam words

This is a really easy problem that you can encounter without realizing it. If your email campaign contains too many spam words, email providers (such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hey, etc.) throw your emails straight into your subscriber's junk folder. It's their job to protect their users from spam emails that promise them millions of dollars from a faraway king.

To protect their users, mark hundreds of words and phrases as spam. Here are just a few of the words you may use that you may not know are creating red flags for spam:

• Affordable
• Apply now
• bonus
• Click here
• Free access
• money
• promise
• Unlimited
• victory
• Urgent
• purchase
• to open
• Increase sales
• Increase traffic
• Take action
• attempt
• Order now

Some email hosting platforms, such as ActiveCampaign, will spam your email content before clicking Submit to let you know that your email has passed the test. If you remove as many of these spam words from your emails as possible, your email will not be saved in the junk folder and inbox.

If your email fits like a wrapped newborn within 102 KB and you've removed everything that could be considered spam – but you're still experiencing a reduced opening rate – let's try a few more options, starting with your subject lines.

# 3: Your subject lines don't do their job

Your subject lines really do one job: let someone open your email. They are optimized for 41 characters or 7 words and make tweets look like complete essays. And considering how small they are, they have to take a punch to do their job.

At DigitalMarketer, we're always testing new subject line strategies to see what works and what doesn't.

We have found that there are 5 subject lines for emails you actually do it well:

# 1: The subject line of the dead-on offer

These subject lines focus only on what you offer and nothing else.

Example: Email marketing announcement: Registration is open again (21.56% open rate).

# 2: curiosity / blind subject

Subject lines that make people curious about what's in your email, or are completely unsure of what's going on and that want to know more are usually very good.

Example of curiosity: Netflix & # 39; huge homepage fails

Blind example: Cut Off (one of the most powerful subject lines in our promotional emails in 2019)

# 3: Subject line for self-interest

Your subscribers like to know what's in it for YOU when they open your email.

Example: Up to 85% discount on our best copywriting strategies

# 4: Urgency subject line

A subject line that emphasizes urgency motivates subscribers who are interested in your offer to open your email so they don't miss much.

Example: LAST CHANCE: DigitalMarketer Lab will be withdrawn from the market in 3… 2… 1…

# 5: Subject line story / relevance

These subject lines take the reader into a story he is curious about. Just make sure you deliver the story you promised.

Example: Here is the REAL reason why Amazon buys whole foods

Use your email platform's A / B test tool to determine which subject lines can improve your open rate. You can set your A / B test to automatically switch to the best performing subject after a set number of hours, so you don't have to worry about the best performing subject using by default a few hours after it is sent becomes.

If your subject lines are accurate and you still see a lower opening rate than usual, it's time to look at your content.

# 4: Your subscribers aren't excited to read your email anymore

We know it hurts to hear that your subscribers don't love your content, but at the end of the day – who is the content for? she. What does that mean? It is time to find out what is going on she Get excited every time they hear a ping and see your company name.

Your subscribers may not like your content for a few reasons. The best way to find out what went wrong is to ask them. You can use a survey platform to ask them what they want to read about you. In your survey, make sure you ask certain questions and give them the opportunity to write their own suggestions.

For example, if we asked our audience, we would ask if they want to read more content about:

• Digital marketing trends
• Google SEO updates
• Facebook algorithm updated
• Case studies on successful digital marketing strategies
• Influencer marketing strategies

Then we would ask them, "Is there anything else we should cover?" and we give them the opportunity to enter their answers.

Another way to ensure that your subscribers want to read what you send them is to segment subscribers as soon as they are added to your list. Instead of having a huge list of all subscribers to whom you send every email, segment your list by how they got it.

For example, if subscribers to a specific lead magnet or offer are included in your list, create a segment for them. Then you can make sure that the emails you receive from you are relevant to this lead magnet or offer. This is a win-win situation because you know exactly what content you are interested in and receive read emails that you are actually interested in.

After checking your email size, spam word usage, subject lines, and content, do you still have a lower opening rate than usual?

If you do this, here are some more email items you can look at to bring the opening rate back to its original state:

• Deliverability
• Call and score of the sender
• The number of times you send email
• persecution

A reduced opening rate doesn't mean you have to give up your list. It just means something is wrong, and you need to switch to research mode to find out what it is and how to fix it.

You will be looking forward to pressing this send button again, knowing that your subscribers will no longer be enthusiastic when your name appears in their inbox.