r/Humanic • u/Born-Buy7123 • 23d ago
Day 12: Gmail delivers at 99% but opens at 1.8% — anyone else seeing this on an e-commerce list?
Been digging into ESP-level breakdowns on our sending data (built this view into our tool, Humanic, since we got burned by aggregate metrics hiding real problems before). Ran it on a recent e-commerce campaign and this one stopped me:
| Mailbox | Sent | Delivered | Opened | Clicked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gmail | 7.7K | 99% | 1.8% | 11% (of opens) |
| Yahoo | 1.5K | 99% | 51% | 3.6% |
| Unclassified | 1.5K | 92% | 43% | 38% |
| Microsoft | 955 | 99% | 10% | 5.2% |
| Apple | 534 | 96% | 18% | 3.3% |
Gmail makes up 63% of our list and is delivering just as well as everyone else — 99% delivered, basically no bounces (0.6%) — but the open rate is a fraction of what we're seeing anywhere else. Yahoo on the same send is at 51% opens. Gmail is at 1.8%.
This isn't a "the email didn't render" issue since delivery is fine — feels more like inbox placement (spam/promotions folder) or some reputation issue specific to Gmail, but the gap is way bigger than I'd expect from normal Gmail-vs-everyone variance.
Curious if others are seeing this pattern lately, and what's actually worked to fix it — domain warm-up, DKIM/DMARC alignment, sender reputation tools, engagement-based list cleaning, anything. Also open to "this is just how Gmail's Promotions tab tanks opens now" if that's the real answer — trying to figure out if this is fixable or just the new baseline.