Yeah, what's weird is the first email. that should be up around 80%. At least 60% or higher. I have never seen such a low first email rate. What's more confusing is how consistant they are after that. They move around a bit but they are all in the same range. you normally see a slow and consistant decline until things bottom out in the 20% - 40% range.

What may be happening is that some people are adding fake addresses to see if they can get the download for free, and then aweber stops delivering to those emails after they bounce, hence the consistant open rate after the first one. But you might want to check with Aweber on this. They will probably just blame it on the single opt in which may or may not be true. All you may be able to do is zero things out and then turn it back on to see if the stats change. Pretty weird though.

Not fundementally, no. That doesn't mean they can't be improved. But i don't read them and think they are bad. It's that first open rate that suggests something weird. Also odd that the third email is doing worse than the last one. You don't usually see that. It's possible that your demographic doesn't like the stoned reference and it's also possible that they are actually thinking it's spam because of the "fun and profit" line and just not reading beyond that. See what Aweber says and remember that you can call them. You'll typically do better if you get on the phone.

Mike Baker said

 

That sounds like kind of a stretch to me - if someone is used to having images off by default for all their emails, are they going to bother to turn them on to look at mine?  - and I doubt that's the root of my issue. 

 

I'd agree. I don't think that is the issue at all. All I can say is that your email rate on email #1 is way off. I would try turning ON the double opt in, resetting the stats, and trying again to see if the bogus emails and a small sample was the issue. Could have even just been a fluke if you didn't have a statistically significant number of subs.