$ man ignore-twenty-percent

Ignore the 20% Suggestion from Instantly / Smartlead

Sending platforms like Instantly and Smartlead suggest you should aim for 20%+ open rates from the start. This is misleading for new infrastructure. It applies to warmed, established domains — not fresh setups.

Platform-suggested benchmarks cause bad decisions. A partner sees "target: 20% open rate" in Instantly's dashboard, their campaign is at 5% after week one, and they want to change the copy, swap the list, or pause the campaign. None of that is the right move for new infrastructure. The 20% benchmark applies to domains with months of reputation. New domains need patience, not panic.

I set expectations upfront with every partner. I show them the warmup timeline: weeks 1-2 are reputation building (low opens expected), weeks 3-4 are stabilization (opens climbing), weeks 5+ are steady state (benchmark comparison makes sense). I ignore Instantly's in-app suggestions about target open rates during the first 2 weeks. I rely on infrastructure-level metrics (bounce rate, spam rate, warmup engagement) instead of campaign-level metrics (open rate) for early performance assessment.