Sudden unexplained drop in open rate

[Gizmo321]

For several months our campaigns have had open rates of around 35%. Recently we switched from SES to our own vps server as our delivery server. This is the only change we have made. The lists, subject lines, domains, sending volume, and email addresses have all stayed the same.
But now our open rates are between 13 and 16%. Our bounce rate has not increased, and our senderscore stayed at 98. SPF and DKIM is fine. None of our IPs are on any blacklists. So what about SES allowed such a high open rate? If our bounce rate has not increased, then just as many emails are being delivered. And with a senderscore of 98 I can't imagine many are going to spam folders. So why do twice as many people open our emails when they are sent over SES? I know open rates are not 100% accurate but surely this big a gap must have a real reason.

If we do decide to look for a new ESP, what are a few that are cheap and not very strict with the account approval process?

 

[frm.mwz]

For several months our campaigns have had open rates of around 35%. Recently we switched from SES to our own vps server as our delivery server. This is the only change we have made. The lists, subject lines, domains, sending volume, and email addresses have all stayed the same.
But now our open rates are between 13 and 16%. Our bounce rate has not increased, and our senderscore stayed at 98. SPF and DKIM is fine. None of our IPs are on any blacklists. So what about SES allowed such a high open rate? If our bounce rate has not increased, then just as many emails are being delivered. And with a senderscore of 98 I can't imagine many are going to spam folders. So why do twice as many people open our emails when they are sent over SES? I know open rates are not 100% accurate but surely this big a gap must have a real reason.

If we do decide to look for a new ESP, what are a few that are cheap and not very strict with the account approval process?

Maybe yours lands in the 'promotion' tab of gmail, while amazonSES was landing you in the inbox?
Or quite a number of filters were more lenient with amazonSES (if you use single optin)?
With 'ESP' you probably mean SMTP, and 'not very strict' means single?
Using a 3rd party to send, if everything is set up correctly and done cleanly, does actually increase your reputation...

 

[Gizmo321]

Maybe yours lands in the 'promotion' tab of gmail, while amazonSES was landing you in the inbox?
Or quite a number of filters were more lenient with amazonSES (if you use single optin)?
With ESP you probably mean SMTP, and not very strict means single?

Only about 10% of our recipients are gmail addresses, most of them are .edu addresses (although I suppose some of these could be hosted on google apps).

Is there anything we can do to get to the inbox instead of the promotions tab?

By ESP I mean any email delivery provider that would be an alternative to SES and can be linked to Mailwizz.

 

[frm.mwz]

Only about 10% of our recipients are gmail addresses, most of them are .edu addresses (although I suppose some of these could be hosted on google apps).

Is there anything we can do to get to the inbox instead of the promotions tab?

By ESP I mean any email delivery provider that would be an alternative to SES and can be linked to Mailwizz.

> most of them are .edu addresses
Anything that is (similar to) public/well-known/transparent as .edu
seems to 'like' public e.g. .gov or .org or gmail or ..., and SES is very well known.
(That is only one explanation.)


> Is there anything we can do to get to the inbox instead of the promotions tab?
You could try and edit out some headers (it is described on the forum).


> By ESP I mean any email delivery provider that would be an alternative to SES and can be linked to Mailwizz.
Most are more expensive than SES, but sparkpost has 100k free (and if you add the others in, you may get to over ttl 200k free).

Hope that helps