Email marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach mobile app users, but getting people to actually open those emails? That's where things get tricky. If you've ever launched an email campaign for your mobile app and watched the open rates trickle in, you'll know that sinking feeling when the numbers don't match your expectations.
The truth is, email performance for mobile apps operates in a completely different world compared to traditional email marketing. Your users have different expectations, behaviours, and attention spans. They're checking emails on their phones whilst walking down the street, during lunch breaks, or scrolling through their inbox at lightning speed. This creates unique challenges that many app developers and marketers don't fully understand.
Open rates aren't just vanity metrics—they're the gateway to user engagement, retention, and ultimately, your app's success
What makes email marketing for mobile apps even more complex is that there's no universal "good" open rate. A gaming app targeting teenagers will see vastly different engagement compared to a productivity app aimed at business professionals. The timing, content, and frequency that works for one app category might completely backfire for another. Yet somehow, we're all chasing the same generic benchmarks and wondering why our campaigns underperform. This guide will help you understand what realistic email performance looks like for your specific mobile app, how to measure it properly, and most importantly, how to improve it without falling into the common traps that plague most app marketing campaigns.
Understanding Email Open Rates for Mobile Apps
Email open rates are quite simple when you break them down—they tell you how many people actually opened the emails you sent compared to how many people received them. Think of it like this: if you send 100 emails and 25 people open them, your open rate is 25%. Pretty straightforward, right?
But here's where things get a bit more interesting for mobile app developers. Your app's email open rates aren't just numbers on a dashboard—they're telling you whether your users actually care about what you're saying. Low open rates might mean your subject lines are boring, your timing is off, or worse, people have forgotten about your app entirely.
Why Mobile Apps Face Unique Email Challenges
Mobile app email marketing is different from regular business emails. Your users have already downloaded your app, which means they've shown some interest in what you do. That's the good news. The tricky bit is keeping that interest alive when their inbox is packed with emails from other apps, social media notifications, and work messages.
App users tend to be quite ruthless with their email subscriptions too. If you're not providing value or you're sending too many messages, they'll unsubscribe faster than you can say "push notification". The competition for attention is fierce, and your emails are competing not just with other emails, but with everything else on their phone.
What Open Rates Actually Tell You
Your open rates give you a quick health check of your relationship with your users. High open rates suggest people trust your brand and find your content relevant. Low rates might indicate it's time to rethink your email strategy, clean up your subscriber list, or improve your subject lines.
Industry Benchmarks and What They Really Mean
Right, let's talk numbers. The mobile app industry loves throwing around open rate benchmarks—but here's the thing: most of them don't tell you the whole story. The average email open rate for mobile apps sits somewhere between 22% and 28%, depending on which report you're reading. But that's like saying the average height of a person is 5'6"—technically correct but not very helpful when you're shopping for clothes!
Gaming apps typically see the highest open rates, often pushing above 30%. Makes sense really—gamers are passionate and engaged with their chosen apps. Productivity and utility apps usually hover around the 20-25% mark, while shopping apps can vary wildly from 15% to 35% depending on their user base and email strategy.
Why These Numbers Can Be Misleading
Here's what the benchmark reports won't tell you: a 15% open rate from highly engaged users who actually spend money in your app is worth far more than a 35% open rate from users who never convert. I've worked with apps that had "terrible" open rates according to industry standards but generated brilliant revenue from their campaigns.
Don't get hung up on beating industry averages. Focus on understanding your own baseline and improving from there. A 2% improvement in your open rates is more valuable than knowing your competitor's numbers.
What Actually Matters
The benchmarks that really matter are your own. Track your open rates over time and look for patterns. Are they dropping? Rising? Staying consistent? Your month-over-month performance tells you much more about your email marketing health than any industry report ever could.
Factors That Influence Your App's Email Performance
Your app's email performance doesn't exist in a vacuum—there are loads of moving parts that can make or break your open rates. Understanding these factors will help you spot why your emails might be underperforming and what you can actually control.
The type of app you've built plays a massive role in email performance. Gaming apps often see higher engagement rates because their users are already engaged and looking for updates about new levels or rewards. Finance apps, on the other hand, might struggle with lower open rates because people don't want constant notifications about money—unless it's something urgent or valuable.
User Behaviour and Timing
Your audience's behaviour patterns are probably the biggest factor you can influence. When people downloaded your app, how they use it, and what they expect from you all shape how they interact with your emails. Someone who uses your fitness app every morning is much more likely to open emails than someone who downloaded it months ago and never opened it again.
Timing matters more than most people realise. Sending emails when your users are actually checking their phones makes sense, but you need to know when that is for your specific audience—not just follow generic "best practice" times.
Technical and Content Elements
The technical side can't be ignored either. Your sender reputation, email deliverability, and whether you're landing in spam folders all affect your numbers before users even see your emails.
- Subject line quality and relevance to your app's purpose
- Sender name recognition and trust
- Email frequency and consistency
- Mobile optimisation (since your audience is already mobile-focused)
- Personalisation based on in-app behaviour
The beauty of app marketing is that you have more data about your users than most email marketers—use it wisely to improve these factors.
How to Calculate and Track Your Open Rates Properly
Getting your open rate calculation right isn't rocket science, but I've seen plenty of mobile app teams mess this up and wonder why their email performance looks dodgy. The basic formula is simple: divide the number of emails opened by the number of emails delivered (not sent—there's a difference), then multiply by 100 to get your percentage.
Here's where it gets interesting though. Most email platforms calculate this automatically, but you need to understand what's happening behind the scenes. When someone opens your email, a tiny invisible image loads—that's how the system knows it was opened. But here's the catch: if images are blocked or disabled, your open won't be tracked. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection has made this even trickier by pre-loading images, which can inflate your numbers.
Setting Up Proper Tracking
Your email platform should track opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes automatically. But don't just look at the headline number; segment your data by device type, email client, and user behaviour within your mobile app. iOS users might show different patterns than Android users, and knowing this helps you optimise your campaigns.
The biggest mistake I see is teams obsessing over open rates without looking at what happens next—clicks, app opens, and actual conversions matter more than whether someone glanced at your subject line
What to Track Beyond Opens
Open rates tell you if your subject line worked, but that's just the start. Track your click-to-open rate (clicks divided by opens) to see if your email content is compelling. Monitor unsubscribe rates per campaign—if they spike, something's wrong with your messaging or frequency. And most importantly for mobile app marketing, track how many email recipients actually open your app after clicking through.
Common Mistakes That Kill Email Performance
After working with countless app marketing campaigns, I can tell you that most email performance problems come down to the same handful of mistakes. The good news? They're all fixable once you know what to look for.
Subject Line Disasters
Your subject line is the first thing people see—and often the last if you get it wrong. Generic subjects like "App Update" or "Newsletter" get ignored faster than you can say delete. Overly salesy language triggers spam filters and turns people off. Keep your subjects specific, honest, and under 50 characters so they display properly on mobile devices.
Using ALL CAPS or excessive exclamation marks makes your emails look like spam. Even legitimate emails can end up in junk folders this way, which destroys your sender reputation over time.
Poor List Management
Sending emails to inactive subscribers is like throwing money down the drain. These people drag down your open rates and increase your spam complaints. Clean your lists regularly—remove subscribers who haven't opened emails in six months or more.
Here are the biggest list management mistakes I see:
- Not segmenting users based on app behaviour or preferences
- Buying email lists instead of building them organically
- Ignoring unsubscribe requests or making them difficult
- Sending the same message to new users and long-time customers
- Forgetting to remove bounced email addresses
Bad timing can kill even great emails. Sending messages when your audience is asleep or busy means lower open rates. Test different send times and track what works best for your specific users. Most email platforms show you when your subscribers are most active—use that data to your advantage.
Proven Strategies to Improve Your App Email Open Rates
Right, let's get to the good stuff—what actually works when it comes to boosting your mobile app email performance. After years of testing campaigns for different apps, I can tell you that small changes often make the biggest difference to open rates.
Your subject line is doing most of the heavy lifting here. Keep it short (under 50 characters works best on mobile), make it personal where possible, and don't oversell. Instead of "AMAZING DEALS INSIDE!!!" try something like "Your workout streak ends tomorrow" if you're a fitness app. It's personal, creates urgency, and doesn't sound like spam.
Timing and Frequency Matter More Than You Think
Send frequency can make or break your email performance. Too many emails and people unsubscribe; too few and they forget you exist. Most successful mobile app campaigns send between 2-4 emails per month, but this varies hugely by app type and user behaviour.
Timing is tricky because your users are probably spread across different time zones and have different habits. Start with Tuesday-Thursday between 10am-2pm, then test from there. Weekend sends often perform better for entertainment apps but worse for productivity ones.
Segmentation Is Your Secret Weapon
Sending the same email to everyone is like shouting into a crowd and hoping someone listens. Segment your users based on how they actually use your app. New users need different messages than power users who've been with you for months.
Before sending any campaign, ask yourself: "Would I personally want to receive this email?" If the answer is no, rewrite it.
The sender name matters too—people are more likely to open emails from recognisable names rather than generic "noreply" addresses. Use your app name or a real person's name from your team, much like how maintaining consistent branding across all touchpoints helps build user trust and recognition.
Testing and Optimising Your Email Campaigns
Right, let's talk about the fun bit—well, I think it's fun anyway! Testing your email campaigns is where you get to play detective and figure out what actually works for your app users. After years of working with mobile apps, I can tell you that what works for one app rarely works exactly the same way for another.
The golden rule here is simple: test one thing at a time. I know it's tempting to change your subject line, sender name, and email design all at once, but you'll never know which change made the difference. Start with your subject lines since they have the biggest impact on open rates. Try different lengths, add emojis, or test questions versus statements.
What You Should Test First
- Subject line length and style
- Send times and days of the week
- Sender name (your app name versus a person's name)
- Preheader text
- Email frequency
When it comes to timing, don't just follow industry best practices blindly. Your app users might behave completely differently. I've seen fitness apps get brilliant results sending emails at 5am, while gaming apps perform best late in the evening. Test different days and times over several weeks to spot patterns.
Making Sense of Your Results
Here's where many people go wrong—they don't wait long enough for statistically significant results. You need at least a few hundred opens per variation to draw meaningful conclusions. Keep testing small changes consistently rather than making huge sweeping changes based on limited data.
Remember, optimisation isn't a one-time job. User behaviour changes, new users join your app, and what worked six months ago might not work today. Set up regular testing schedules and keep tweaking those open rates higher. Consider implementing strategic timing for your campaigns just as you would for other marketing initiatives.
Conclusion
Getting good email performance for your mobile app isn't rocket science, but it's not child's play either. Throughout this guide, we've covered the benchmarks you should aim for—20-25% open rates for most app categories—and more importantly, why those numbers matter less than your own trends and improvements over time.
The truth is, there's no magic formula that works for every mobile app. What drives great open rates for a fitness app might fall flat for a productivity tool. Your audience is unique, your app serves a specific purpose, and your email strategy should reflect that. The key is understanding your baseline, testing systematically, and making gradual improvements based on real data, not gut feelings.
Remember that email performance goes beyond just open rates. Yes, getting people to open your emails is the first hurdle, but if they're not engaging with your content or taking action in your app afterwards, you've got bigger problems to solve. Focus on building genuine relationships with your users through valuable, relevant content that makes their app experience better.
Start with the basics we've covered: clean your email list regularly, write compelling subject lines, send at optimal times for your audience, and never stop testing. Small improvements in each area compound over time, and before you know it, you'll be seeing the kind of email performance that actually moves the needle for your app's growth and retention.
