Optimize Email Subject Lines 10 Tips For Effective Subjects With Examples
Management Summary
“Newsletter open!” – we already had one with this title some time agoBlog articlein which we gave you valuable tips for writing effective subject lines. In the meantime, there have been further findings and trends when it comes to effective subject lines, which we would like to address in this blog article.
The subject line is not a summary of content from your email. I repeat.The subject line is NOT a summary of content from your email.Rather, the subject line is the only indicator with which your recipients decide within seconds whether to open your email or not. In many cases, optimizing subject lines can mean money or a significant increase in brand affinity.
Then we summarize10 more tips for writing effective subject linestogether for you. Since each of the tips below can only be a hypothesis for your individual target group, we definitely recommend changing your subjects and preheaders every time you sendA/B testing.
Quick links to the 10 tips
3 Pay attention to readability
5 The interaction of subject and preheader
7 Ask a question – arouse curiosity
1. As specific as possible
Subjects with specific offers, information or a specific benefit for the recipient perform best in terms of open rates. Therefore, try to make your subject as clear as possible.
Example:
“Receive your personal offer now”(unspecific)
“-25% on our entire ski range”(specifically)
2. The spice lies in brevity
The number of characters displayed in your subject and preheader in your recipients’ email inbox is limited. So keep it as brief as possible and place the most important information, such as a discount or a date, at the beginning of the subject. The number of characters displayed in your subject line varies greatly depending on which email client your recipients use, as shown in the list below:
Differences in the number of characters displayed in the email subject depending on the email client
-
- Apple iPhone: 41 characters
- Gmail: 70 characters
- Android: 38 characters
- Outlook: 73 characters
- Yahoo Mail: 47 characters
- GMX: 63 characters
Many email marketing tools enable you to evaluate the email clients in your recipient list. This is the best way for you to determine the optimal length of your subject. However, the shorter the better.
3. Pay attention to comprehensibility and readability
The subject“Avoid breast cancer – magnetic resonance imaging now near you”is not as easy to understand as“Avoid breast cancer – make an appointment now for screening in your area”. Always remember: yoursRecipients decide within a few secondswhether they are yoursOpen email or not. If the subject is not easy to grasp and understand, your email will be overlooked.
4. Personalize
Personalizing the email subject has long proven to be an effective tool. However, there are more options here than simply addressing recipients with their first and last name.
More examples:
| V1: not personalized | V2: personalized | segment |
| “Secure your summer accessory” | “Secure your beach towel for the Danube this summer” | Recipient in Vienna |
| “Our chef recommends: our zoodles” | “Other pasta fans love our zoodles, don’t you?” | Customers who are increasingly buying pasta |
| “-10% on your next online order” | “-10% off your next Pizza Capriciosa” | Customers who choose Pizza Capriciosa for more than half of their orders |
5. The interaction of subject and preheader
The subject and preheader are right next to each other in your recipients’ inboxes. It is therefore advisable to use these two elements of your email marketing in a coordinated manner. The formulation of oneCall-to-actions in the subjectwith the associated context in the preheader, for example, has proven to be effective in the past.
More examples:
Subject (CTA):“Register only until March 31st”,Preheader (context)“Google Analytics Conference from April 9-24, 2021
Subject (CTA)“Redeem your voucher now”,Preheader (context)“Today only: 25% off shoes”
6. Scarcity
Use a shortening element in your subjects. People are afraid of missing out on something. Address this fear directly with your subject and use more than traditional offer phrases.
Example:
“For a limited time only: €20 discount on winter shoes”(offer phrase)
“You’re missing out on €20 off winter shoes”(Fear of failure triggered)
7. Ask a question – arouse curiosity
Often asking a question can make recipients more curious about the content of your email than stating facts. The active approach arouses the interest of your readers.
Another example:
“The 10 most common mistakes when formulating email subjects”(finding)
“Do you make these 10 mistakes when formulating your email subjects?”(Ask)
8. Be unusual
When it comes to the main reasons for canceling newsletters, the irrelevance of the content is usually given in first place. This takes second placehigh volume of emails in the inboxa. What conclusion do we draw from these statistics? Your recipients almost certainly have an extremely full inbox. Most of the emails in it are not even noticed by your recipients. How to get noticed? Be unusual.
More examples:
“Don’t open!”(Offer online trading)
“Your eBook is inside”(free eBook online publisher)
“Snap snap, hair off”(newsletter, hair salon)
Important: be unusual –with measure and purpose. We recommend approaching this strategy slowly and A/B testing different subject lines for their effectiveness.
9. Avoid spam
Whether you end up in your recipients’ spam folder not only affects the performance of your current email campaign, but potentially all future ones as well. There arecertain indicationsbased on which email clientsEmails are more likely to end up in spamTransport folders. This includes, for example, WRITING WHOLE WORDS OR SUBJECTS IN CAPITAL LETTERS or using many exclamation marks in a row!!!!!!!!!!
Email clients also react to certain spam words such as:inexpensive, inexpensive, gift, free, special offer, save money, you win.This list is intended as an example and not as a complete list. We recommend checking your subject for spam words before sending.
10. Test, test, test
We give you tips for formulating effective subject lines, which we use as a supplement to oursexisting blog articles on effective email subjectssummarized for you. However, only you can determine how best to address your recipient list and encourage them to open your emailsRecipient decide for themselves. We therefore recommend this for every shipmentSubject lineA/B testingand thus find the best subject wording for your individual recipient list.
