The Only Guide You Need On Fixing Cold Email Open Rates

A cold email open rate directly reflects your ability to generate leads, book meetings, and drive revenue. 

But cold emails are constantly competing for attention with other mediums.

In such a situation, getting your emails opened is the first step toward building a profitable sales pipeline. 

A low email open rate signals ⤵

• lost leads⤵
• weakened pipeline⤵
• And leaving opportunities—and money—on the table.

This guide breaks down everything you need to know about cold email open rates, from benchmarks to actionable strategies, so you can optimize your campaigns, and consistently hit your lead gen targets. 

Let’s dive in. 

What is cold email open rate?

A cold email open rate measures the percentage of recipients who open your email. For cold emailers, the open rate is a vital first indicator of campaign success. 

It shows whether your subject lines are compelling enough to be opened by the prospects.

It’s also a somewhat strong indicator of email deliverability.

What is the average cold email open rate?

The average email open rate for cold emails varies depending on the industry, target audience, and email content. 

According to our research, the average cold email open rate typically ranges between 30% and 40%.

Understanding this benchmark helps set realistic expectations and goals for your campaigns.

An average cold email open rate often indicates 2 things ⤵

• You need to optimize the email copy
• You need to optimize for the email timings 

What is a good email open rate for cold emails?

A good cold email open rate indicates that your outreach strategy is effective and that your emails are successfully grabbing attention. 

Now benchmarking email open rates vary by industry, audience, and approach, 

According to our research, a good cold email open rate is typically above 65%.

A high open rate reflects alignment with your audience’s interests and a well-optimized strategy.

What is a bad email open rate for cold emails?

A bad cold email open rate is typically below 20%, indicating serious issues with your outreach strategy. 

At this level, most recipients are either not seeing your email or are uninterested in opening it.  

Common reasons for a bad open rate include ⤵ 

• Irrelevant targeting → Sending emails to the wrong audience or outdated email addresses.  

• Weak subject lines → Generic or unclear subject lines that fail to grab attention.  

• Spam issues →  Emails landing in spam folders due to poor sender reputation. 

• Poor timing → Sending emails at times when prospects are less likely to check their inbox.  

How to calculate cold email open rates?

For the best answer, you DO NOT need to calculate cold email open rates manually.

In fact, nobody does, at present.

Most people use cold email softwares to run email outbound campaigns and track all the metrics such as open rates, responses, bounce rates etc. from that tool.

However, if you’re still interested, here’s one straightforward formula – 

Example 

If you send 1,000 emails and 800 are successfully delivered inbox, with 200 being opened, your open rate would be:

(200 / 800) x 100 = 25%

Tracking this metric consistently helps you identify trends and areas for improvement in your cold email campaigns.

Is open rate still a relevant metric for cold emailers?

Yes, but with caveats.

Open rates are valuable for assessing the performance of subject lines and sender reputation. 

But they shouldn’t be the sole metric for evaluating cold email campaign performance especially from the angle of B2B sales outreach.

Here’s why ⤵

• Modern ESPs like Google and Outlook often preload emails for security and tracking purposes, falsely registering them as opened. 

• Additionally, open rates don’t distinguish between emails delivered to the inbox or spam folder.

• Even some cold email tools inflate open rates to give their users the false engagement on cold email campaigns.

• For IOS users, Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), automatically marks emails as “opened” even if recipients haven’t engaged, skewing metrics.

Keeping all these factors in mind, you should no longer solely rely on email open rates as a powerful campaign performance indicator.

For sales outreach, your primary cold email metrics should include reply rates, positive reply rates, inbox placement rate(IPR), conversion rates etc.

We have discussed in details about more cold email KPIs and metrics in our cold email masterclass series.

Check out: Cold Email Analytics: 15 Sales Email Metrics & KPIs to Track

Inbox placement: a reliable alternative to the open rates

A true indicator of email deliverability should be inbox placement rate more than just open rate.

This metric makes more sense to the cold emailers doing sales outreach.

While open rates measure how many emails were opened, inbox placement rate focuses on how many of your emails actually land in the recipient’s inbox instead of the spam or promotions folder.

Well, If your emails don’t reach the prospect’s inbox, they have zero chance of being seen, opened, or acted upon.

So, a better and more reliable alternative to open rate for cold emailers should be inbox placement rate.

At SmartReach.io, we are currently working on this feature and you’ll soon be able to see it live in the campaign reporting dashboard.

Check our website for more details.

5 Reasons for poor cold email open rates

Here are the top 5 reasons why your cold emails are never opened by the prospects – 

#1 Weak subject lines ❌ 

Unclear or uninteresting subject lines fail to grab attention. Using spam triggering words can also be a reason.

For example, “Check Out Our Product” lacks the specificity needed to engage recipients.

#2 Irrelevant or outdated email list ❌

Sending emails to inaccurate and irrelevant contacts reduces engagement and increases bounce rates.

#3 Spam filters and poor deliverability ❌

Emails flagged as spam never reach the inbox which kills open rates. 

There are multiple factors behind it such as a poor sender reputation, overly promotional content and more.

Read more: SPAM Filter 101: What It is and How to Avoid It

#4 Bad cold email timing ❌

Sending cold emails at inappropriate times, such as weekends or late evenings, can lead to lower opens.

#5 Lack of email personalization ❌

Generic, one-size-fits-all emails don’t resonate with the prospects, leading to poor engagement.

6 Tips to fix poor cold email open rates and increase it 

Here are the best actionable tips that you should use to fix and improve the poor email open rates for your cold email campaign.

You’ll also find how SmartReach.io helps in this process.

Tip #1 → Improve the email subject line

Use concise, engaging subject lines that spark curiosity or highlight value that you offer.

Here’s how an attention grabbing and effective subject line can look like ⤵

Some additional points ⤵

• Keep the email subject line within 45-50 characters for full visibility on mobile devices.

• Avoid using spam-trigger words in the subject line.

• DO NOT use misleading email subject lines as it can be reported to SPAM.

• Personalize the email subject line and overall email content.

If you’re using SmartReach.io, you can use the SmartReach AI to create engaging email sequences using the power of AI.

It saves a lot of time + each email email copy is uniquely generated for the highest amount of engagement.

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Tip #2 → Improve the quality of your email list

No. of factors such as email deliverability, cost per lead, campaign performance etc. depend on the quality of email list quality directly.

So, use a double verified email list consisting of accurate and correct email information for doing sales email outreach.

Accurate email list + target prospects = Higher email engagement 

Some additional points ⤵

• Purchase email lists only from verified sources (e.g., B2B lead databases)

• Building and growing email lists organically > buying email lists 

• The email database provider should comply with laws such as CAN-SPAM, GDPR, CASL etc.

• Clean your email lists regularly to remove outdated and unsubscribed emails.

• Learn to naturally build and grow your business email list asap.

To build relevant and targeted email lists, SmartReach users can use the FREE B2B lead finder tool inside the platform and export the pre-qualified list directly into their campaign.

It saves hours of manually collecting lead information such as emails, phone numbers, firmographics etc.

Also, with the FREE email validation mechanism inside SmartReach, every email address in your campaign is automatically validated before sending emails into them.

This saves your emails from landing into spam and facing all sorts of ugly deliverability issues.

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Tip #3 → Optimize the email sequences for better deliverability 

Take better email deliverability measures that makes sure your emails are not getting flagged and are actually getting delivered to their mailboxes.

This can mean improving a lot of things such as email copies, email infrastructure set-up and a lot more.

We’ll not go much into the details here.

For more information check out → How to Improve Email Deliverability?

Improved deliverability → more emails land in the inbox → more email opens.

SmartReach.io offers premium email delivery features that helps your emails land in the primary inbox of the prospects (not in promo or spam).

Premium email deliverability features include ⤵

• Free unlimited email verification, 
• Free spam report, 
• global black list monitoring, 
• AI-driven email warm-ups, 
• inbox rotation and esp matching and more.

Check out the email deliverability features for more detailed information.

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Tip #4 → Send emails at optimal times

Research suggests B2B decision-makers are more likely to check their inbox early in the morning or midweek, typically Tuesday to Thursday.

Experiment with sending times to align with your audience’s work schedule and maximize the chances of your email being noticed.

Read more → Cheat Sheet : Best time to send emails

If you are using SmartReach.io, you can use the Timezone based sending feature to send emails at custom times to prospects located at different timzones.

SmartReach.io automates the sending patterns as per the timezones giving your emails a boost in open rates and engagement.

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Tip #5 → Use professional email addresses for outbound emails

When you’re doing cold email outreach for B2B lead generation purposes, always use professional email addresses.

Your emails SHOULD NOT look like [email protected] or [email protected] ❌

It should include your domain name and full name. 

E.g., [email protected] ✅

Including the domain name create credibility and entice them to open your emails and read them.

Also, do not send emails from a company service emails such as [email protected], or [email protected] ❌

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Tip #6 → Send at least 4 follow-up emails

Most cold emails only get a reply after the 4th follow-up.

Make sure you set-up a 4-5 sequence email minimum which includes email follow-ups after regular intervals.

Create variation in the CTAs of each emails, subject lines and offers for the email follow-ups.

Using SmartReach.io, you can automate this email sequence creation and follow-up process.

You can even set-up multichannel sequences such as LinkedIn DMs, calling, WhatsApp messaging, text messaging etc. as follow-ups.

Adding multiple follow-ups + multichannel sequences = More replies + engagement

Bottom line

The cold email open rate is an okay metric for cold email outbound. 

Don’t go too hard on it.

To achieving a high open rate takes effort, focusing on personalization, list quality, and timing.

Tools like SmartReach.io provide deliverability features to optimize your campaigns, helping your emails not only reach but engage the right audience.

A strong open rate only works when you—pair it with meaningful actions like replies and conversions to create impactful campaigns.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. What’s a good cold email open rate?

A good cold email open rate is above 60%, indicating a highly optimized campaign.

2. Why are my cold email open rates low?

Low open rates can result from weak subject lines, poor list quality, bad email timings or spam filter issues.

3. How can SmartReach.io help improve open rates?

SmartReach.io improves email deliverability, automates personalization, and helps manage your campaigns effectively.