Low Open Rates? What Email Deliverability Experts Say

In 2025, achieving high email open rates remains a significant challenge for marketers. The average open rate across industries is approximately 22.7%, with sectors like government and financial services experiencing higher engagement, while industries such as retail face lower averages around 13.9%. ​(Source: Virfice)

Email deliverability—the ability to successfully land emails in recipients' inboxes—is crucial for the success of cold email campaigns. Even well-crafted messages can fail to engage potential clients if they end up in spam folders or go unopened.

Factors influencing deliverability include sender reputation, email authentication protocols, and content relevance.

Understanding Email Deliverability and Its Impact

What Is Email Deliverability and Why Does It Matter?

Email deliverability refers to the ability of your emails to successfully land in your recipients' inboxes rather than being filtered into spam or getting blocked. In 2025, with businesses increasingly relying on cold email personalization and sophisticated email delivery services, ensuring high deliverability rates is critical for achieving sales outreach success.

While email marketing strategies are effective for B2B lead generation, low deliverability rates can sabotage even the most well-crafted campaigns. Best practices to improve email deliverability helps you save your resources, missed opportunities, and reduced ROI.

According to recent reports, 20% of all legitimate emails never reach the inbox due to issues related to sender reputation and technical configurations.

For businesses utilizing our products like LandInbox or conducting cold email campaigns, optimizing deliverability means maximizing the effectiveness of their sales efforts.

Email Delivery vs. Email Deliverability

Understanding the distinction between email delivery and deliverability is essential for improving campaign success:

• Email Delivery refers to whether your email was successfully delivered to the recipient’s server. It answers the question: Was the email accepted by the email server?
  
• Email Deliverability measures whether your email made it to the recipient’s inbox instead of being categorized as spam. It answers the question: Did the email land in the inbox, promotions tab, or spam folder?
  

In short, achieving email delivery doesn’t guarantee email deliverability. Your email could be delivered but still end up in the spam folder, reducing the chances of engagement.

6 Key Factors Affecting Inbox Placement

To improve email deliverability and ensure your emails reach the inbox, consider the following key factors:

1. Sender Reputation:
   

   ISPs (Internet Service Providers) track the reputation of your sending domain and IP address. Maintaining a positive reputation through low bounce rates, minimal spam complaints, and consistent sending patterns is crucial.
   
   

2. Email Authentication Protocols:
   

   Implementing authentication methods like SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) enhances credibility and reduces the risk of being flagged as spam.
   
   

3. Engagement Metrics:
   

   High open rates, click-through rates, and low unsubscribe rates signal to ISPs that your emails are valuable. Personalized and relevant content leads to better engagement and improved deliverability.
   
   

4. List Hygiene:
   

   Regularly clean your email list by removing invalid or inactive contacts. Email delivery services often provide list management features that help maintain a healthy sender score.
   
   

5. Avoiding Spam Triggers:
   

   Using spammy words, excessive use of caps, or misleading subject lines can lower your deliverability rate. Tools like LandInbox can help analyze content for potential spam triggers.
   
   

6. Email Warm-Up Trends:
   

   Gradually increasing your email sending volume through a structured email warm-up process establishes credibility and prevents emails from being marked as spam.

4 Common Causes of Low Open Rates

Low email open rates are a major challenge for B2B marketers, especially in cold email personalization and email marketing strategies. Despite having carefully crafted content, if your emails remain unopened, it impacts your overall ROI and campaign effectiveness. Understanding the root causes of low open rates is crucial to improving email deliverability and achieving your outreach goals.

Here are some of the most common causes of low email open rates:

1. Poor Email List Quality and Outdated Contacts

An outdated or low-quality email list is one of the biggest contributors to poor open rates. B2B companies often struggle with stale contact data, leading to emails being sent to invalid or disengaged addresses. According to HubSpot, 22.5% of email addresses decay every year, making regular email list cleaning essential.

Solution:

• Use reliable email delivery services to verify and clean your list.
• Remove inactive, bounced, or invalid email addresses regularly.
• Segment your list to ensure you’re sending relevant messages to the right audience.

2. Lack of Personalization and Irrelevant Content

B2B buyers expect highly personalized communication. Emails that lack personalization or offer irrelevant content are more likely to be ignored. In fact, 80% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands that offer personalized experiences (Epsilon).

Solution:

• Implement cold email personalization techniques by addressing recipients by name, using relevant data points like their company, industry, or recent activities.
• Leverage AI-powered intent data from platforms like LandInbox to tailor your content to the prospect's interests and pain points.

3. Spam Triggers and Poor Domain Reputation

Emails that land in the spam folder instead of the inbox will severely impact your open rates. Over 70% of emails are marked as spam due to poor domain reputation, spammy content, or missing authentication protocols (Statista).

Solution:

• Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to authenticate your emails and build domain credibility.
• Avoid using spammy language, excessive punctuation, or misleading subject lines.
• Monitor your sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster or Microsoft SNDS.

4. Ineffective Subject Lines and Low Sender Reputation

The subject line is the first impression of your email. A weak, generic, or irrelevant subject line often results in poor open rates. Additionally, a damaged sender reputation from previous spam complaints can further diminish your chances of landing in the inbox.

Solution:

• Craft compelling subject lines that are personalized and relevant to your audience. A/B test different subject lines to find what resonates best.
• Build a positive sender reputation by consistently sending valuable content and maintaining low bounce rates.
• Use email warm-up tools like LandInbox to gradually establish credibility with ISPs.

Expert-Backed Best Practices to Improve Email Deliverability

Email deliverability has become a non-negotiable part of successful outbound and email marketing strategies, with inbox providers tightening filters. To combat low open rates and engagement drops, experts recommend a layered approach using personalization, warm-up protocols, and reliable tools like LandInbox and modern email delivery services.

Cold Email Personalization: Why Personalized Emails Boost Engagement

Personalization is more than just a first-name token. In the B2B space, personalization based on firmographic, behavioral, or intent data dramatically increases relevance and results.

Emails with personalized subject lines see 26% higher open rates (Source: Campaign Monitor).

Cold emails that reference a prospect's specific role, pain point, or company can see up to 2x more replies (Source: SalesLoft).

Best Practice: Use data signals such as LinkedIn activity, recent funding, or tech stack to craft outreach that speaks directly to the prospect's world.

Email Warm-Up Trends: Latest Trends in Domain and IP Warm-Up

Warming up your domain or IP is essential to avoid getting flagged as spam—especially when starting cold email campaigns at scale.

• 2025 Warm-Up Trends: AI-based Warm-Up Tools simulate natural engagement (opens, clicks, replies) to boost sender reputation.
• Slow Scaling: Gradually increasing daily sends from 10–20/day to 1,000+ over weeks.
• Smart Engagement Pods: Cross-mailbox warm-ups using trusted networks.
• Pro Insight: Start with 2–3 warm mailboxes, use email warm-up tools for 30–45 days, and only then ramp to full volume.

LandInbox Solutions: How Specialized Tools Ensure Inbox Placement

LandInbox is purpose-built for cold email professionals who need to land in the primary inbox, not spam or promotions.

Email Delivery Platforms Improve Deliverability

Reliable email delivery platforms form the backbone of scalable outreach. Tools like Mailgun, SendGrid, Postmark, or SMTP2GO offer:

• Dedicated IPs and throttling control for cleaner delivery.
• SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup support to authenticate sending domains.
• Comprehensive logs and dashboards to troubleshoot delivery issues fast.

Optimizing Your Email Strategy for Better Open Rates

In a world where inboxes are saturated with marketing emails, simply hitting "send" isn't enough.

For SaaS and B2B brands relying on cold outreach and outbound campaigns, optimizing your email marketing with respect to the email marketing checklist for 2025 is crucial to convert leads.

Here are expert-backed techniques to ensure your emails don't just get delivered—they get opened.

Crafting Attention-Grabbing Subject Lines

Your subject line is the first—and sometimes only—chance to earn a prospect’s attention. A weak or generic subject line will likely be ignored, even if the email content is valuable.

Personalized subject lines boost open rates by up to 26% (Source: Campaign Monitor).

• Keep subject lines short (5–7 words).
• Use curiosity, urgency, or personalization.
• Avoid spammy words (e.g., “Free,” “Act Now,” “Urgent”).

📈 Example:
Instead of: “Introducing Our New Tool”
Try: “[First Name], cut your sales ops time in half”

Personalizing Email Content to Resonate with Recipients

Today’s B2B buyer expects relevant, personalized communication. Emails that feel automated or irrelevant are deleted instantly.

Tactics to Implement:

• Address the recipient by name and job title.
• Mention a relevant trigger (e.g., recent funding, product launch, LinkedIn activity).
• Align your message to the recipient's pain points or goals.

Timing Your Emails for Maximum Engagement

Even the best-written emails can go unopened if they hit the inbox at the wrong time. Emails sent at the optimal time are 22% more likely to be opened (Source: Mailchimp).

Optimal Timing Guidelines (2025):

• Best days: Tuesday and Thursday
• Best time slots: 10:00 AM–11:00 AM or 2:00 PM–4:00 PM (based on recipient time zone)
• Avoid sending late evenings, weekends, or during holidays.

A/B Testing for Continuous Optimization

Never assume your email strategy is perfect—test it. A/B testing allows you to identify what resonates most with your audience.

A/B Test These Elements:

• Subject lines
• Preview text
• Opening lines
• CTA buttons
• Send time and day

Conclusion

Improving email engagement requires a multi-faceted approach, combining personalization, segmentation, and strategic timing.

By implementing the expert strategies outlined in this guide, you can significantly boost your open rates and overall email marketing performance. Remember, the key to success lies in continuous testing, analyzing your metrics, and adapting to your audience's preferences.

With persistence and the right tactics, you can transform your email campaigns into powerful engagement drivers, fostering stronger connections with your subscribers and achieving your marketing goals in 2025 and beyond.