The Radical #1 Reason Your Open Rate Drops (and What To Do About It)
Don't panic. Your newsletter isn't dying. It's getting trickier to measure your newsletter success. Here's how to navigate the radical changes
My email list is the #1 growth driver of my online writing business. I’ve grown it from zero to almost 12,000 engaged subscribers within 2,5 years.
However, I call myself a “smallstacker” since in the grand scheme of the subscription economy, 12,000 is seen as “small”. And I know most of you are smallstackers, too, with 50, 500 or 5000+ subscribers.
I still remember the early days when my newsletter journey felt like a rollercoaster ride - from ecstasy to misery. From OH YEAH! to It’S OVER!
Even now I’m sometimes thinking about calling it quits since building this newsletter on the side with an audiene primarly from America (not my time zone) is tough.
Whenever this happens I take a look at the pink post-it Note on my screens and remind myself that this is just part of the newsletter game. That to stay ahead of 90% of newsletter writers, I need to adapt to change and breethe through it.
And it’s the best game you can be playing right now because you can only win. You can take your email list with you and nurture them wherever you go. Whereas followers are dead (except you can convince them to become members and/or customer to buy from you).
It started in autumn 2024, when tribe members reached out to me frustrated about their open rates.
“What the heck is going on, Kristina?”
“I think I’ll quit. Less people are reading my work.”
“Dunno why but my open rate dropped. I put so much effort in it. I’m lying on the floor crying…HELP!”
Let me explain.
Your Open Rate = Metric for Success?
In a perfect world, when your audience likes your subject line and writing, they found your email interesting enough to open it and click on the links you’re sharing to show their interest. For some, open rates are the be-all and end-all performance metric.
Want to check how your Substack newsletter issues are performing?
Here’s how to calculate open rates on Substack:
Number of users who open your newsletter / Number of users who receive your newsletter * 100
= Number of Opens / Number of Delivered Emails) * 100
If you’re writing on Substack, information about how your newsletter issues are performing can be found in three places:
Dashboard_Settings_Stats_Emails
Three dots of a newsletter posts_View Stats
30-day open rate in Dashboard_Home
But you might have experienced it yourself or heard many see a drop in their open rates. Well, there’s a reason for it - and, spoiler alert, don’t panic. It’s NOT your writing!
A drop in your open rate doesn’t indicate
your newsletter is dying
less are interested in your words
less are taking action
There are specific security settings which bring radical changes when it comes to the newsletters you’re sending. This isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.
I hope with today’s guest post from teach lead and VIPer
we can show you that it’s tricky to measure the impact of your newsletter with “open rate”. Some might tell you to delete subscribers to build a healthy email list. I hope we can show you to be a bit careful with this.Especially Substack is NOT the place for list hygiene and removing inactive subscribers from your list since “open rate” as a metric is inaccurate! Open rate is not the metric it once was.
But let’s Alex spill the tea on the latest security updates.
Pssst! As a member, you can download OPENED! Why Emails Flop & How to Fix It Fast! for FREE (more at the bottom of this post).
I had a 1-2-1 with
the other day, and she told me that many of the tribe members have experienced a drop in the open rate for their newsletter.This sucks, but don’t worry—chances are your readers did not stop receiving your emails, nor did they stop opening them.
It’s neither you nor them; actually, it might be the technology. Let me explain.
I’m a Tech Lead and Apple Fan
Hi all, I’m Alex. 👋🏻
I'm a full-time parent of one and a husband, but what is more important for the subject at hand is that I’m also tech-leading a team of passionate software engineers, having been one of them myself.
Before becoming a tech lead, I enabled entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by developing their iOS applications. I kinda became an Apple fan myself in the process, and now I’m watching every one of their events, and I’m always up-to-date with their software release (however, it’s not the case for the hardware—I own an Apple Watch 7 and iPhone 14 Pro).
Apple Started a War to Protect Its Users' Privacy
Over the years, Apple has started a war to protect its users' privacy, and it is getting more aggressive with each major software release. In the words of Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, protecting people’s privacy is “one of the most essential battles of our time.”1
“Privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s also one of our core values. Which is why we design our products and services to protect it. That’s the kind of innovation we believe in.”
— Apple
Privacy is at the core of everything Apple does and is well embedded in its hardware and software.
Take Apple Intelligence, for example; they worked extra hard to ensure their devices were powerful and energy-efficient enough to run the large language models on devices so that they didn’t have to rely, for the most part, on cloud computing.
For when the task is too complex to handle on the device, they went the extra mile. They developed Private Cloud Compute, which “allows Apple Intelligence to draw on larger server-based models running on Apple silicon to handle more complex requests while protecting your privacy.”
What the iOS Updates Are
The Timeline of Apple Protecting People’s Privacy
One of the first major steps towards privacy was with the release of iOS, which introduced Content Blockers. These allowed users to block certain types of content, such as ads or tracking scripts, in Safari.
Then, they went the next level with the introduction of Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), which blocked third-party apps from tracking your identity across webpages. As a result, companies that relied on ads, like Facebook or Google, had a hard time targeting them accurately.
Now, when you open Safari, the first thing you see is the number of trackers prevented from profiling you and how many websites have use such scripts.
But they didn’t stop there.
Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) Changed Everything
With the release of iOS 15, they introduced Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), a new feature that “helps users prevent senders from knowing when they open an email and masks their IP address so it can’t be linked to other online activity or used to determine their location.” 2
In a nutshell, as long as your readers are using Apple’s email client on iOS, iPadOS, or macOS and have activated the Protect Mail Activity, you won’t know if they opened your latest newsletter!
As more readers enable this feature, the open rate will drop even further.
I don’t think they will stop here; each year, they add new privacy features for their platform users.
And I can’t blame them. I use it myself, and I’m grateful for such features, especially in our modern age when we are the product of big companies that make a living by selling us ads.
Others might soon follow Apple’s lead, so the question is, what can we do about it?
It’s Totally Out Of Your Control
I like to measure things, and having a dashboard with all these numbers—views, open rate, all subscribers and followers, paying subscribers, demographic—is very exciting. It can also be very useful in making decisions.
It allows you to experiment with your writing and get feedback on how your readers react to your changes. Most importantly, it fuels our motivation by giving us shots of dopamine every time the number of subscribers goes up or an issue surpasses the average view count.
When an article has a sudden drop in the open rate, it might give us a hit that the title didn’t catch our readers’ eyes when scrolling through 2763 undread messages. The reverse is also true: when our latest newsletter has a sharp increase in the open rate, it means that we might have done something worth repeating.
However, if the open rate trend slowly declines over time, we should consider that email clients might prevent Substack (and the other platforms) from accurately measuring it. The worst part is that this is totally out of our control.
But there’s something we can do about it.
✅Going Beyond Open Rates: Meaningful Metrics That Matter For Me
My approach is to think about a complementary measurement that is in my control—accurately measured by the platform—and that is aligned with my goals or intentions. A measurement that matters to me.
When I started my newsletter, it wanted to validate that it’s something I can do and not quite after a month, but that it’s also helpful for my readers. So, I counted the number of published issues and the number of subscribers and hoped for a reader’s reply.
Now that I have decided to convert my newsletter into a side hustle (or at least experiment with it), I consider other things important. One is writing daily, so I measure my daily writing rate, and the target is to hit an 80% ratio.
I also care about the impact of my writing, so I measure the number of meaningful interactions my posts receive and how many publications recommend my newsletter.
And since I am trying to turn this into a side gig, I want to know if it is profitable. However, instead of measuring how much money I make, I measure how much money I give away, considering I’m donating 20% of all income.
These metrics are more important to me than views or open rates, as they are better aligned with my intentions, and they allow me to experiment, adapt, and change based on what drives these numbers up.
More importantly, they enable me to focus on what is within my control rather than on the things that can easily be disrupted by decisions outside my influence.
This doesn’t mean I don't use the other metrics at all; they are useful as well, and I have them on the dashboard. However, they don’t drive my decision—they are more like a car indicator light.
2 Source: https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2021/06/apple-advances-its-privacy-leadership-with-ios-15-ipados-15-macos-monterey-and-watchos-8/
3 Source: https://freewritingtips.wyliecomm.com/2020-11-12/
🙏🏻🙏🏻Alex, you’re a real professional. Thanks so much for sharing these insights with us 🙏🏻🙏🏻 If you’re a software engineer, make sure to subscribe to Alex’s newsletter. He has an amazing engineering mindset he’d like to share with you.
⭐BONUS - How to Increase Your (Substack) Open Rates
If you’ve been following me for a while you might now, subject lines and all things newsletters are topics that I really nerd out on
Apple constantly updates their iOS and this means significant changes. “Open rate” as metric can be misleading for you and frustrated you. I don’t want this for you.
To stay ahead of 90% of newsletter writers you need to adapt to these (ongoing) changes. Apple will keep updating its software.
One thing that’s very important is to keep your newsletter out of the dreaded graveyard of the (new) Promotions tab or Spam tab on Google.
According to Statcounter’s Global Stats as of February 2025, almost 28% mobile users worldwide have iPhones.
and also about 28% of Americans.
Also, according to the SWAN team, 80% of emails are opened on phones, rather than computers. Interesting to keep in mind in regard to formatting your newsletter post.
✅Want to Know What To Do About Open Rate Drops?✅
As a member, download OPENED! Why Emails Flop & How to Fix It Fast! Boost Your Email Open Rate Despite The Radical Apple & Google Changes for FREE.
Code for members is in the Chat.
Or buy it for $9.
🤔Your turn! What metrics do you keep track of? Which metrics matter for you?
For both of us, Alex and me, it would be wonderful to hear from you.
Your comments, nice notes and restacks ♻️♻️keep our part-time business going. Thanks 🙏🏻🙏🏻 for sharing this news and insights with your friends, subs and followers.
P.S. Email subject lines can greatly increase open rates by using the “right words”
 | A guest post by
|
Here you can download OPENED for FREE and grab the code: https://substack.com/chat/443311/post/5a17bbb8-dd00-4cd2-86b7-345b6af337f4
Like Kristina said, I'm looking forward to your questions and curiosities (unfortunately, I don't have access to Kristina's inbox 😆).
Also, I'm eager to hearing (or reading) about the metrics that matter most to you and your readers.