Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part III

Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part III

Hello Marketers!

Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space!

This is the final post in the "open rate series". In the first and second parts, we discussed topics ranging from sender domains to pre-headers—but we're not done yet. A few more important topics await you in this post. Let's dive right in.

Personalized content

Personalization is important in email marketing—but it doesn't end simply with addressing your contacts by their first names. It's much more than that. You have to tailor your entire campaign—from design to content—in order for it to click with them.

Here's what the path of personalization looks like:

 
  • Request contacts' preferences after they sign up. Zoho Campaigns automatically sends a double opt-in form after contacts sign up (if enabled) in which they can update their preferences and topics.
  • Send campaigns to these contacts, as they're the ones who've shown real interest in what you're offering.
  • Track metrics like opens, product views, and link clicks. Zoho Campaigns' Reports module is your best friend.
  • Segment contacts based on these behaviors and send targeted campaigns to these segments.
  • Further refine your sending practices by creating content variations dynamically, determining the frequency at which they want to receive campaigns, and optimal send times.
 
Dynamic content

Dynamic content is another form of personalization, where the content changes dynamically depending on who opens and views the campaigns.

Let's say an ecommerce brand runs a Diwali sale using an email campaign.

Based on past behavior, electronics shoppers see gadget deals, fashion shoppers see festive wear, and inactive users see a comeback offer—all within the same email. Images, headlines, offers, and CTAs automatically change for each contact.

The marketer sends one campaign, but every recipient sees content tailored to their interests, which make the emails feel personal and relevant.

The Dynamic Content element in Zoho Campaigns' templates does all the heavy lifting for you.



It's effortless to set up; you just need to drag-drop the elment's variant, set the conditions, and see the magic.

Check out our ebook on personalization for more details.

Multi-device and multi-client responsiveness

These days, you may look at your mobile phone more than your laptop or desktop. Accordingly, as a marketer, you should design your campaigns so that they're responsive across multiple device types, like laptops, mobile phones, and tablets. Here are some quick tips for creating responsive campaigns for multiple devices and multiple email clients (like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo).

Imagine your contacts open your campaigns but find images loading too slowly, cramped content, unclickable CTAs, or broken layouts when viewing via their phones. They won't open your campaigns again if these issues persist—which leads to poor open rates.

Here are some ways you can design your campaigns to be responsive across different devices and email clients:
  • Make mobile your priority: Use single-column layouts, readable font sizes, and tap-friendly buttons to ensure smooth mobile experiences. Prevent any stray taps from your contacts by leaving sizable space surrounding your buttons.
  • Always preview: Use Zoho Campaigns' built-in desktop and mobile previews to catch layout issues before sending. Click each campaign's magnifier button (in the Content section) to preview for desktop and mobile.



  • Send test emails: Open test emails in real inboxes (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) across both laptop and mobile devices. Create test accounts in these email clients and send campaigns to yourself.
  • Pay extra attention to Outlook: Outlook handles HTML differently and often needs special testing.
  • Granular checks: Validate links, images, alt text, and dark mode visibility before hitting send. Don't upload high resolution images, as it'll increase your emails' load times when your contacts first open them.
  • 60:40 ratio: Generally, maintaining a ratio of 60% text and 40% images in your campaigns is recommended. While this ratio doesn't have a direct contribution to open rates, it does improve loading speeds, accessibility, and inbox trust—all of which do contribute directly to open rates.
Multi-device testing makes sure your campaigns works across varying screen sizes, while multi-client testing ensures they render correctly across different email clients. Both are essential, as different email clients interpret HTML differently.

A/B testing

A/B testing helps you make smarter email decisions by letting actual contacts vote without realizing it. Instead of guessing about what works, you can create two versions of the same campaign that differ in one key way (such as their subject line, CTA, or send time) and then send them to different (but equal) portions of your contacts. The version that gets more opens or clicks is the winner—and you can then send it to your remaining contacts.

For example, let's say Patricia from Zylker Fashions is launching a weekend sale. Version A uses the subject line "Weekend sale is live", while Version B says "Your weekend savings start now". She sends both to roughly 10% of her list. After a few hours, Version B gets higher opens, so she automatically sends it to the remaining 80%. Over time, repeating such tests helps her consistently improve engagement and results.

Remember that your target contacts are often based on demographics, geography, and behavior, so test results from one group may not reflect the reactions of another.



Zoho Campaigns has a specific A/B Testing campaign feature you can use when you create email campaigns.

Send-time optimization

Let's say you're based in the US and have customers all over the globe. You want to send a campaign to your UK contacts, but you don't want to send it in the middle of the night; it might put them off. More often than not, these emails will go unopened. Instead you should schedule it to arrive at a specific time—in their specific time zone—when they're most likely to open it.

Zoho Campaigns offers this functionality. After designing your campaign with our template builder, you're ready to send it. You can choose between Send Immediately and Send Later. Upon choosing the latter, you can select either the Recipients' Time Zone and Recipients' Optimal Open Time, among other options.



The recipient's time zones are determined by whatever contact data you have, such as their country. Optimal open times, on the other hand, are based on the recipients' past engagement histories, such as when they usually open emails.

With that, we've come to the end of this three-part series.

Improving open rates is all about being consistent. We covered a wide range of topics, from sender domains and subject lines to pre-headers, personalization, dynamic content, testing, and send-time optimization.

Until next time. Happy marketing!


Kind regards,
Sai Prashanth
User Education
Zoho Campaigns

    • Recent Topics

    • Analytics <-> Invoice Connection DELETED by Zoho

      Hi All, I am reaching out today because of a big issue we have at the moment with Zoho Analytics and Zoho Invoice. Our organization relies on Zoho Analytics for most of our reporting (operationnal teams). A few days ago we observed a sync issue with the

    • How to use Rollup Summary in a Formula Field?

      I created a Rollup Summary (Decimal) field in my module, and it shows values correctly. When I try to reference it in a Formula Field (e.g. ${Deals.Partners_Requested} - ${Deals.Partners_Paid}), I get the error that the field can’t be found. Is it possible

    • Zoho Creator to Zoho CRM Images

      Right now, I am trying to setup a Notes form within Zoho Creator. This Notes will note the Note section under Accounts > Selected Account. Right now, I use Zoho Flow to push the notes and it works just fine, with text only. Images do not get sent (there

    • CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

      Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),

    • Error Logs / Failure logs for Client Scripts Functions

      Hi Team, While we are implementing client scripts for the automation, it is working fine in few accounts but not working for others. So, it would be great if we can have error Logs for client scripts also just like custom functions. Is there any way that

    • Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

      Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They

    • Ticket to article and Ticket to template

      Hello! I would like to know if it is possible (and how) to do the following actions: 1. To generate an article from a ticket (reply + original message) 2. Easy convert an answer to an email template

    • Zoho Books blocks invoicing without VeriFactu even though it is not mandatory until 2027

      I would like to highlight a very serious issue in Zoho Books for Spain. 1. The Spanish government has postponed the mandatory start of VeriFactu to January 1st, 2027. This means that during all of 2026 businesses are NOT required to transmit invoices

    • Problem : Auto redirect from zoho flow to zoho creator

      Hi there, I've been waiting for zoho team to get back on this for last couple of days. Anyone else have the problem to access zoho flow? everytime I click on zoho flow it redirects me to zoho creator. I tried incognito mode but it still direct me to zoho

    • How to link tickets to a Vendor/Vendor Contact (not Customer) for Accounting Department?

      Hi all, We’re configuring our Accounting department to handle tickets from both customers and vendors (our independent contractors). Right now, ticket association seems to be built around linking a ticket to a Customer / Customer Contact, but for vendor-originated

    • Automation #7 - Auto-update Email Content to a Ticket

      This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Email is one of the most commonly

    • Learner transcript Challenges.

      Currently i am working on a Learner Transcript app for my employer using Zoho Creator. The app is expected to accept assessment inputs from tutors, go through an approval process and upon call up, displays all assessments associated with a learner in

    • Client and Vendor Portal

      Some clients like keeping tabs on the developments and hence would like to be notified of the progress. Continuous updates can be tedious and time-consuming. Zoho Sprints has now introduced a Client and Vendor Portal where you can add client users and

    • #7 Tip of the week: Delegating approvals in Zoho People

      With Zoho People, absences need not keep employees waiting with their approval requests. When you are not available at work, you can delegate approvals that come your way to your fellow workmate and let them take care of your approvals temporarily. Learn more!

    • Trouble with using Apostrophe in Name of Customers and Vendors

      We have had an ongoing issue with how the system recognizes an apostrophe in the name of customers and vendors. The search will not return any results for a name that includes the mark; ie one of our vendors names is "L'Heritage" and when entering the

    • Why am I seeing deleted records in Zoho Analytics syncing with Zoho CRM?

      I have done a data sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics, and the recycle bin is empty. Why do I see deleted leads/deals/contacts in Zoho Analytics if it doesn't exist in Zoho CRM? How can I solve this problem? Thanks

    • Nueva edición de "Ask The Expert" en Español Zoho Community

      ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Te gustaría obtener respuestas en directo sobre Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk u otra solución dentro de nuestro paquete de CX (Experiencia del Cliente? Uno de nuestros expertos estará disponible para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra

    • How to use MAIL without Dashboard?

      Whenever I open Mail, it opens Dashboard. This makes Mail area very small and also I cannot manage Folders (like delete/rename) etc. I want to know if there is any way to open only Mail apps and not the Dashboard.

    • Peppol: Accept Bill (Belgium)

      Hi, This topic might help you if you're facing the same in Belgium. We are facing an issue while accepting a supplier bill received by Peppol in Zoho Books. There is a popup with an error message: This bill acceptance could not be completed, so it was

    • Zoho Books is now integrated with Zoho Checkout

      Hello everyone,   We're glad to be announcing that Zoho Books is now integrated with Zoho Checkout. With this integration, you can now handle taxes and accounting on your payment pages with ease.   An organization you create in Zoho Checkout can be added to Zoho Books and vice-versa. Some of the key features and benefits you will receive are:   Seamless sync of customer and invoice data With the end-to-end integration, the customer and invoice details recorded via the payment pages from Zoho Checkout

    • Sync Issue

      My Current plan only allows me with 10,000 rows and it is getting sync failure how to control it without upgrading my plan

    • Is there API Doc for Zoho Survey?

      Hi everyone, Is there API doc for Zoho Survey? Currently evaluating a solution - use case to automate survey administration especially for internal use. But after a brief search, I couldn't find API doc for this. So I thought I should ask here. Than

    • Add Zoho PDF to Zoho One Tool Applications

      It should be easy to add from here without the hassle of creating a web tab:

    • JOB WISE INVOICE PROCESS

      I WANT TO ENABLE JOB WISE TRACKING OF ALL SALES AND PURCHASE

    • PDF Template have QTY as first column

      I want to have the QTY of an item on the sales orders and invoices to be the first column, then description, then pricing. Is there a way to change the order? I went to the Items tab in settings but don't see how to change the order of the columns on

    • RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) Type Q+A Environment with Zoho Learn

      Hi All, Given the ability of Zoho Learn to function as a knowledge base / document repository type solution and given the rapid advancements that Zoho is making with Zia LLM, agentic capabilities etc. (not to mention the rapid progress in the broader

    • Welcome to the Zoho ERP Community Forum

      Hello everyone, We are thrilled to launch Zoho ERP (India edition), a software to manage your business operations from end to end. We’ve created this community forum as a space for you to ask questions, comment answers, provide feedback, and share your

    • In App Auto Refresh/Update Features

      Hi,    I am trying to use Zoho Creator for Restaurant management. While using the android apps, I reliased the apps would not auto refresh if there is new entries i.e new kitchen order ticket (KOT) from other users.   The apps does received notification but would not auto refresh, users required to refresh the apps manually in order to see the new KOT in the apps.    I am wondering why this features is not implemented? Or is this feature being considered to be implemented in the future? With the

    • Consolidated report for multi-organisation

      I'm hoping to see this feature to be available but couldn't locate in anywhere in the trial version. Is this supported? The main aim to go to ERP is to have visibility of the multi-organisation in once place. I'm hopeful for this.

    • IMAP mail after specify date

      Hi My customer's mail server is on premise and mail storage is very huge. So It never finish sync. and finally stop sync. Cloud CRM have a option like zoho mail sync mail after some date.

    • Claude + MCP Server + Zoho CRM Integration – AI-Powered Sales Automation

      Hello Zoho Community 👋 I’m excited to share a recent integration we’ve worked on at OfficehubTech: ✅ Claude + MCP Server + Zoho CRM This integration connects Zoho CRM with Claude AI through our custom MCP Server, enabling intelligent AI-driven responses

    • Notes badge as a quick action in the list view

      Hello all, We are introducing the Notes badge in the list view of all modules as a quick action you can perform for each record, in addition to the existing Activity badge. With this enhancement, users will have quick visibility into the notes associated

    • Search Bar positioning

      Why is the Search bar on the far right when everything is oriented towards the left?

    • Basic Mass Update deluge schedule not working

      I'm trying to create a schedule that will 'reset' a single field to 0 every morning - so that another schedule can repopulate with the day's calculation. I thought this would be fairly simple but I can't work out why this is failing : 1) I'm based in

    • The Social Playbook - January edition: Getting started with content creation

      Social media isn’t just about posting some random content. It’s about why certain content works, how brands stand out, and what makes people pause mid-scroll. The Social Playbook is a monthly community series where we break all of that down. Through real

    • Import Error: Empty values for mandatory fields - Closing Date

      Hello, I've tried multiple times to import a CVS Potential list from another Zoho account. But the error message I get is: Empty values for mandatory fields - Closing Date There are valid dates in this field, so I don't understand why this error messages

    • Adding custom "lookup" fields in Zoho Customization

      How can I add a second “lookup” field in Zoho? I’m trying to create another lookup that pulls from my Contacts, but the option doesn’t appear in the module customization sidebar. In many cases, a single work order involves multiple contacts. Ideally,

    • Special characters (like â, â, æ) breaking when input in a field (encoding issue)

      Hey everyone, We are currently dealing with a probably encoding issue when we populate a field (mostly but not exclusively, 'Last Name' for Leads and Contracts). If the user manually inputs special characters (like ä, â, á etc.) from Scandinavian languages,

    • Customizable UI components in pages | Theme builder

      Anyone know when these roadmap items are scheduled for release? They were originally scheduled for Q4 2025. https://www.zoho.com/creator/product-roadmap.html

    • Feature Requests - Contact Coloured Picklist Visibility & Field Visibility During Ticket Creation

      Hi Desk Team, I have 2 feature requests for you. Since Coloured Picklists are now available in Desk, It would be great if the colours were visible on the Related Details (Contact Information) when creating a ticket. In the screenshot below, I have 2 fields

    • Next Page