7 Reasons Your Emails Have Poor Open Rates

We know how it feels to craft the perfect email, only to see the open rates fall short. It's a frustrating experience that we can all relate to; you create these messages to engage with your audience and deliver valuable content to your recipients, but if they aren’t opened, all that work is for nothing. It’s an important reminder that all your efforts are only as effective as the audience's willingness to open and engage with your email.

So, how can you improve your open rates in 2025? Here are a few mistakes you might be making that could damage your campaign’s success.

1. Your Subject Line Is Boring

Basically, your email's subject line is the gatekeeper to engagement, and if it doesn't grab attention, your email will be ignored. Most subject lines fail, as they will be generic, overly sales, and vague. You must be proactive and strategic to stand out, avoiding these common pitfalls.

Personalization isn't just a trend; it's a crucial strategy for your subject line. Using first names or user behavior to tailor the message is a powerful way to connect with your audience. Spark curiosity among the recipients to open the email; it's about framing your content as the missing piece to a puzzle your audience is already trying to solve. This personal touch makes your audience feel valued and understood.

One important thing to note is to respect your audience's trust in your brand by avoiding the temptation of clickbait subject lines. While a clever or curious subject line can be engaging, misleading them can quickly erode your audience's trust, leading to a swift unsubscribe from your email list. Remember, your audience's trust is a valuable asset that should be respected and nurtured.

2. You're Not Segmenting Your Email List

If you're still sending the same email to every one of your customers, it's time to rethink your strategy. Personalization is key, and there's nothing more frustrating for a customer than receiving an email that doesn't apply to their relationship with the product, service, or company. By segmenting your email lists, you can provide more personalized and relevant content, leading to higher engagement.

Segmenting email lists can be helped by real-time behavioral data, predictive analytics, and even AI-generated customer personas.

You can segment your list based on geographic location targeting, engagement level, browsing history, customer journey stage, and device type. These will allow you to personalize your email's content better, providing more value to the recipient and increasing the likelihood that they will want to learn more.

3. Your Email List Is Outdated

Don't underestimate the impact of an outdated email list. It's not just a simple oversight; it can be one of the most overlooked reasons your open rate is so low and why the email is not being delivered. If you send the email campaigns to invalid and undeliverable email addresses (remember that email lists decay by nearly 2% each month), it damages your sender's reputation and decreases your email open rates. Your engagement metrics are used by Internet service providers (ISPs) to determine whether your emails belong in the spam folder or someone's inbox.

In that case, you are likely sending those well-segmented emails with intriguing subjects to undeliverable addresses. The more undeliverable addresses you send to, the more it affects your sender score. A low sender score can lead to your emails being flagged as spam, reducing the chances of your emails reaching real addresses. So, clean your email lists regularly. Use email verification tools like Emailable to eliminate invalid and undeliverable email addresses.

4. You're Sending Emails At The Wrong Time

The best time of day to engage with the audience of an influencer marketing company might not be the same as for a bookkeeping company. Many AI tools can help you predict the best time to send emails based on past open behavior and time zone data. The other most reliable source is the customer data. Segment your list into three groups. Send the same email to one group in the morning, another in the afternoon, and the last in the evening. Track which time gets the most opens, and repeat this test periodically, as behavior can shift over time. Also, remember, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Additionally, keep in mind that there is no universally applicable solution. A B2B audience may engage better on weekday mornings, while a B2C fashion brand might see better results on weekend evenings. The key here is to test numerous times to find the perfect time for your audience.

5. You're Ignoring Mobile Optimization

Optimizing email messages for mobile devices will play a critical role in 2025. Over 70% of all email opens now occur on mobile devices. If your subject line gets truncated, your preview text fails to load correctly, or your call-to-action button is too small or hard to tap on a mobile screen, you're not just creating a poor user experience but losing opens, clicks, and conversions.

Always structure your content with mobile users in mind. Keep paragraphs short to avoid overwhelming the reader with dense blocks of text on a small screen. Use larger fonts for body text to maintain readability. Your calls to action should be visible, well-spaced, and designed to be "thumb-friendly," meaning users can easily tap them without zooming or misclicking.

Ultimately, your goal is to create an email experience that looks and functions smoothly on mobile phones, like desktop monitors.

6. You're Not Testing Enough And Making Use Of AI

Email campaign success isn't just about doing something that worked once. Your audience's preferences change rapidly, and your email performance in January won't mirror that in July. It's about building a system that adapts to your audience's evolving behavior. Every campaign you send is an opportunity to gather new data, uncover new preferences, and refine your strategy.

AI tools can take your testing to the next level by analyzing considerable datasets to predict optimal send times, subject line tone, personalized content recommendations, and even emotional analysis. With this predicted data, you can try A/B testing for your email campaigns with different subject lines, email length, layout, tone, send times, and CTA placement numerous times and optimize them regularly. By measuring which one gets more opens, you gain real-time insight into what drives your audience to engage.

By leveraging AI's capabilities with consistent testing, you can connect more effectively with your audience, leading to consistently higher email open rates.

7. Your Emails Don't Provide Real Value

The inbox has become more competitive than ever. With countless brands seeking attention, your recipients have become highly selective about what they open and engage with. Simply pushing products or offers isn't working anymore; people filter out anything that doesn't immediately resonate or add value.

The value doesn't always mean a sales pitch. Sometimes, it's as simple as showing up with something helpful or thoughtful. You may be solving a small problem for your reader, answering a question they didn't even know they had, or making their day a bit easier.

Building trust is a long game. Although your email may not prompt an immediate purchase, it can establish a foundation for future actions. A well-crafted, helpful message demonstrates respect for your audience's time and needs. That consistency builds goodwill over time; it turns casual readers into loyal customers, making them feel confident and secure in their relationship with your brand.

Conclusion

In conclusion, improving your email open rates in 2025 is less about quick hacks and more about audience-first strategies. Be relevant, valuable, and respectful of your reader's time. Improving your open rates starts with knowing your audience, cleaning your list, writing better subject lines, and sending at the right time. Remember that an opened email is just the start of an incredible journey with a customer.