Why are my email marketing open rates under 1% in Gmail during IP warming?

Hi! An under‑1% open rate at Gmail two weeks into an IP warm-up usually isn’t “normal” if you’re actually landing in the inbox—it's most often a sign that Gmail is placing you in Spam (or heavily filtering/throttling), not that Gmail is somehow “suppressing” opens. Postmaster Tools can look “fine” early on because it’s sampled/aggregated, can lag, and it doesn’t always reveal inbox vs spam placement directly.

A few likely reasons Gmail looks uniquely bad vs other mailbox providers:

1) You’re delivered, but not in the inbox (Spam placement = near-zero opens).
Gmail is typically the strictest on new/low-history domains and new IPs, especially in higher-risk niches. If messages land in Spam, many recipients never see them and images won’t load—so open tracking pixels won’t fire. The quickest reality check is to manually send to a small set of real Gmail accounts you control and see where the message lands (Primary/Promotions/Spam) and whether images are auto-loading.

2) Domain reputation matters more than your IP warm-up (and takes longer).
With Gmail, “warming the IP” helps, but the sender domain reputation (and sometimes the reputation of your tracking/redirect domains) is often the bigger lever. A brand-new sender domain can take several weeks to establish a stable reputation even with careful ramping—longer if the niche is routinely associated with complaints or spam.

3) “Recent clickers” doesn’t always mean “recent Gmail-positive signals.”
If those clicks were mostly from non-Gmail addresses, it won’t help Gmail much. Gmail really responds to Gmail-user engagement signals: opens (when in inbox), replies, moving from Spam to Inbox, starring, adding to contacts, “Not spam,” etc. During warm-up, try segmenting to your most engaged Gmail users specifically (recent clickers + recent delivered-to-inbox history if you have it).

4) Missing or imperfect Gmail bulk-sender requirements (even if you’re under 5,000/day, these still help).
Even if you’re not seeing “compliance issues,” double-check the stuff Gmail cares about most for promotional email marketing:

• SPF + DKIM are passing, and DMARC is published (and alignment is correct with your visible From domain).
• One-click unsubscribe is implemented correctly (List-Unsubscribe plus the one-click method) and you’re honoring unsubscribes quickly.
• Your “From” domain, DKIM signing domain, return-path/bounce domain, and tracking domains aren’t creating a weird mismatch or reputation split.

5) Link/tracking/creative patterns that Gmail distrusts (very common in higher-risk niches).
Gmail filtering often reacts to: heavy link density, “money” pages, certain offer structures, URL shorteners, aggressive redirect chains, mixed domains (From is clean but tracking domain is new/sketchy), or landing domains with a poor reputation. Even if your subject lines are toned down, the URLs and page reputation can be what trips Gmail.

6) Volume pattern and throttling (delays can tank “open rate by day”).
If Gmail is deferring a lot of mail (slow acceptance / temp failures), your ESP may show deliveries spread out, and your “open rate” for the send window can look awful. Check your SMTP logs/ESP event data for Gmail deferrals and delivery timing.

If you want the fastest way to pinpoint the cause, do these 3 checks:

1. Inbox placement test (manual, not just stats): send to 5–10 real Gmail test accounts (different ages), verify Primary/Promotions/Spam and whether images load.
2. Gmail-only segment: run a small campaign to your top Gmail engagers (not just global engagers) and compare results.
3. Audit alignment + unsubscribe + tracking domains: make sure authentication/DMARC alignment is clean, one-click unsubscribe headers are correct, and your click tracking/landing domains are reputable and consistent.

If you tell me (a) roughly how many Gmail recipients you’re sending per day right now, (b) whether Gmail is landing in Promotions vs Spam in your own tests, and (c) whether you’re using a separate tracking domain, I can help you narrow this down to the most probable culprit and what to change first.