At Hive, we’re constantly working on ways to set you and your email marketing up for success. The latest feature to help optimize your strategy is estimated open rate, which shows up every time you set up an email campaign.
Estimated open rate predicts the open rate of an email before you send it, based on the targeted recipients. By selecting and deselecting which engagement levels are going to receive the email, you’ll see the estimated open rate change.
One of the main reasons we created the open rate estimator is to give you more visibility into how sending to inactive recipients affects the open rate of your active recipients. In conversation, we found that Hive users were surprised to learn that ISPs (Gmail, Outlook) take into consideration the engagement of every subscriber for each campaign in order to determine inbox (or spam) placement.
ISPs (Gmail, Outlook) take into consideration the engagement of every subscriber for each campaign in order to determine inbox (or spam) placement.
The open rate estimator gives you the opportunity to think a little more about what you’re sending to which subscribers, and why. Maybe your weekly campaign shouldn’t be sent to inactive subscribers along with active, or maybe there’s an opportunity to craft specific campaigns to re-engage inactives (and not affect deliverability for your active subscribers).
Related: Email Automation 101: How to Create an Engaging Winback Series
So how does it all work? This is what goes into estimated open rate:
Engaged Subscribers
If you've sent emails to the selected recipients in the past, the estimated open rate looks at the open rate of previous emails you’ve sent to that specific set of subscribers.
New Subscribers
When you select subscribers you've never emailed before, the estimate is based on the open behaviour of your new subscribers in the past.
Length of Email Subscription
The estimated open rate takes into consideration that even active recipients naturally become less engaged over time.
Emailing Behaviour
Sending an email to a large number of unengaged recipients (inactive, bounced, etc.) affects the engaged recipients also receiving the email. One consequence of doing so is poor inbox placement for all recipients. On the other hand, if you send an email to a high percentage of engaged subscribers, your recipients who are less active may benefit from better inbox placement.
Wrap Up
We’re hoping that adding more tools like estimated open rate to Hive will give you the perspective you’re looking for when it comes to your email list health. By having access to insights on engagement and deliverability before you send a campaign, you’ll be more empowered to keep your email strategy as engaging as possible.