Why did my Ghost newsletter open rate drop?
The Ghost help pages give 3 common reasons. The first to rule out: Open rate is opens divided by the number of recipients, so a change in either number moves the rate.
What causes it?
Open rate is opens divided by the number of recipients, so a change in either number moves the rate.
In the Ghost help:
The open rate (shown as a percentage) is the number of opens divided by the number of recipients.
Post analytics, read 2026-11-12.Newsletter open tracking can be turned off along with Ghost's other analytics features.
In the Ghost help:
All analytics features in Ghost, including web analytics, newsletter opens, newsletter clicks, member sources and outbound link tagging can be turned off directly in Settings → Analytics.
Disabling analytics, read 2026-11-12.Email is turned off for a member whose newsletters keep failing or are marked as spam.
In the Ghost help:
If newsletters sent to a member consistently fail, or are marked as spam, then emails for that account will be disabled.
Why is my member’s email disabled?, read 2026-11-12.
How do I check it myself?
Use Ghost's comparison with your typical averages before treating one low newsletter as a trend.
In the Ghost help:
To help you contextualize how a specific post performed, open and click rates are compared against your typical averages
Post analytics, read 2026-11-12.Check how many members each newsletter was sent to before comparing open rates.
In the Ghost help:
The number of members who were sent your newsletter.
Post analytics, read 2026-11-12.
How does Ghost work with Feder?
- Connect Ghost to Feder and it joins your Interest apps.
- When you connect Ghost, Feder checks the connection straight away and shows Connected only when that check passes. If a reading cannot be taken later, Feder shows it as not read, never as zero.
Some numbers are too quiet to judge daily, such as a form filled in a few times a week. Until there is enough of your own history to judge a change, Feder says it is still learning and scores nothing, rather than guessing.
See whether you can trust the numbers in Ghost, one of your Interest apps. Feder only reads. It never changes anything in Ghost.
What else goes wrong with these numbers?
- Why did my member count change in Ghost?Ghost
- Why did my Ghost newsletter subscribers change after I imported members?Ghost
- Why did Google Analytics stop collecting data?Google Analytics
- Why aren't my key events showing in Google Analytics?Google Analytics
- Why does Google Analytics show (not set)?Google Analytics
See every question.
Where do these answers come from?
Every cause and check on this page comes from the Ghost help pages, quoted above with the date we read them. Last reviewed 2026-11-12. We read them again by 2027-11-12. If one changes, this page changes or comes down.