- Paperboy
- Posts
- What's a good open rate?
What's a good open rate?
Well... it depends.
Fil from Bedford
February 28, 2025 • Reading time: 7 minutes
GM! Paperboy here 🗞️
I’m looking to work with 1 or 2 new brands in March. If you run a 7 or 8-figure brand and want to talk, please click here to book a time. You can see some of my agency’s work on our website.
Today’s Golden Nugget: This Shinesty funnel
There’s no debate that underwear companies have the most fun creative jobs.
They can get away with almost anything. If you’re looking for unhinged, check out Shinesty’s milled emails.
But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.
I want to show you a simple flow funnel hack.
We all know about the “looking for something?” email discount.
But what Shinesty does after the click is what I wish more stores would copy.
What I like:
Announcement bar with custom* code. You can hack this together with UTMs & Claude pretty easily. Requires beginner coding knowledge. Reply to this email and I might do a tutorial.
They send people to a simple collections page that promotes best sellers and bundles (shoutout to sponsor Foxsell).
Bonus: Humor in the welcome flow. “Go ahead, ruin our profit margins.”
Today’s Issue: What’s a good open rate?
I’m working with a new CPG client. They do 8-figures in rev, have major distribution in retail and are looking to win in DTC right now.
On our initial onboarding, they asked me the question everyone always asks.
“What’s a good open rate?”
Every industry has this question. It's the "what's a good ROAS" or "what's a good conversion rate" of the email world.
And there are two answers.
The first one: 80%. That's a damn good open rate. If you can do that you've won at email marketing.
The second (non-sarcastic) one: it depends.
Ah yes, the answer everyone dreads. It depends.
So to help answer this question for you, or perhaps make a simple copy-pasta you can send to your boss when they ask you this tricky question, I'll do my best to break down why it depends below.
I'll also share what to ask instead. It'll help you make better business decisions.
Let’s start with the metrics.
Your Open Rate | Health Level | Considerations |
|---|---|---|
60%+ | Your open rates are great. | You might be too conservative with size of sends or your list is still small. |
50-60% | Your open rates are pretty good. | Same as above. Your subject lines might need some work. |
40-50% | Your open rates are ok. | Check the segments you’re sending to, the quality of your content, and your subject lines. |
30-40% | Your open rates need some work. | On bigger sends this is fine. On regular everyday sends, you need to figure out if you have a list, content or subject line problem. It's probably a mix of the three. |
<30% | Your open rates need a lot of work. | You are likely sending to a lot of people who either don't like your content or they don't check that email anymore. Time for an intervention. |
Why it depends
I'm not being intentionally vague.
Every brand has:
A different brand experience
A different product
A different way they collected an audience
A different set of customers
A different list size
And the list goes on.
For your brand specifically, you should ignore other brands and focus internally.
Your goal shouldn't be to quickly jack up open rates; instead, it should be twofold: To send more engaging emails AND to send them to the right people.
To maximize this, let’s break down what elements influence open rates and how you can improve them:
Element | Key Question | How to Check |
|---|---|---|
The list you’re sending to | Are you reserving everyday sends for engaged users and bigger sends for sales/drops? | Segment your engaged lists by 30, 60, 90, and 180 days. Look at your subscription growth. Look at absolute opens over time. Also, watch out for welcome flow drop-off (people who subscribe then quickly churn out of your brand). |
Subject lines | Are they enticing? | AB test your subject lines until you figure out what style works best. |
Quality of previous emails | Were they high quality, or chatGPT slop? | AB test your emails for click rates. Ask your customers and your team if your emails are good. This is going to require you to be introspective. |
Quality of your product | Do you have product market fit? | If you have PMF, you know. If you don’t, stop reading these emails and go find it. Klaviyo isn’t your problem… your product is. |
So what’s a good open rate?
Here’s what I tell clients at my agency when they ask:
It depends, but anywhere above 50% is pretty good. Anywhere between 30-50% means we have structural work to do, and anything under 30% means we need to do an overhaul.
Either way, our goal is to consistently send high quality, engaging emails to the right people. That’s how we drive long-term email success.
We’ll monitor open rates, click rates, list growth, revenue, and retention over time to gauge the success of our efforts. It will never be perfect, but we will do our best at tracking how our emails are converting new customers and driving repeat purchases over time.
If you look at the big picture and improve your overall email strategy, email opens will naturally improve over time. Make 1% improvements every time you read my newsletter and you’ll have a better retention strategy than 90% of brands.
Meme of the Week
That’s all for now,
Paperboy 🗞
p.s. Did you like the newsletter? Hate it? Reply and tell me why! I read and reply to every message.
AfterSell - Upsells that drive AOV without hurting CVRs
Alia Popups - Engaging popups that grow your list
FoxSell Bundles - Build loyalty and AOV through bundling
I use all these sponsored tools for 7 and 8-figure brands at my agency. I would never promote a product I don’t personally use.