Noticed a huge drop in email open rates after March of this year

I run a weekly newsletter for a local bakery in Austin and our open rates stayed steady around 45% for two years straight. Then starting in March 2025, they dropped to 28% and haven't bounced back. Has anyone else seen this shift recently and figured out what changed?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_joel17d ago

Apple's privacy changes hit hard around March 2025, so that's probably why your numbers tanked overnight. Try segmenting your list by who actually clicks instead of just relying on opens, that helped me figure out who's really engaging.

avery_walker3017d ago

Yeah totally what @the_joel said about Apple's privacy thing is spot on. I mean that March timing lines up exactly with when they rolled out those mail privacy protections that basically break open tracking. I'd take it a step further though and say you should probably stop even looking at open rates as a real metric at this point. Like seriously just ignore them entirely because they're not telling you anything useful anymore. Instead focus on something like click-through rates or even better actual sales from the newsletter if you can track that. Also maybe try running a quick re-engagement campaign where you ask people to whitelist your email or click something to prove they're still interested. That helped me a ton when I saw the same drop.