When sending cold emails, it's crucial to prioritize deliverability. One counterintuitive but effective strategy is to disable open rate tracking. Here's why:
Hidden Links: Open rate tracking adds a hidden link/tracking pixel to each email, which can trigger spam filters.
Reduced Deliverability: Email providers like Google and Outlook can't see what's behind these hidden links, leading to worse deliverability.
Inaccurate Metrics: Open rates aren't always reliable for cold emails. Because most users use smartphones and a popup notification on their phone counts as a email opened.
Instead of fixating on open rates, concentrate on reply rates. A reply rate of 2% or higher usually suggests good inbox placement. The objective is to make email providers perceive your emails as personal messages to friends rather than promotional content. Disabling open rate tracking is a crucial step in achieving this goal.
If you absolutely must track opens for a brief period (e.g., to conduct split-tests on subject lines), employ randomized custom domain tracking to minimize the impact on deliverability.
By prioritizing deliverability over open rate tracking, you’ll increase your chances of reaching your prospects’ inboxes and achieving better results with your cold email campaigns.
Pro Tip: Delivery Optimization: Enable "delivery optimization" in your email tool to send emails in plain text format, further improving deliverability.