How to Get Higher Email Opens By Split Testing Subject Lines

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Are your email open rates struggling? You might be making mistakes you don’t even know you’re making. You can find out with a split test.

Last week, we explained the power of a good split test and showed how it can be done with sign up forms and lightboxes. But split tests don’t end once your list has taken shape. You can also test different elements of your emails to see what makes for more successful emails.

One of the easiest things to test is your subject line. Subject lines are crucial because they are the very first thing people see in their inbox. If it doesn’t intrigue them, it could also be the last thing they see of that email.

ClickZ, a marketing blog, did a test (and a retest) of a consistent subject line for a newsletter vs. a subject that indicated the topic of that edition of the newsletter. The consistent subject was “Subscriber Newsletter,” and the test ensured that the key theme of the newsletter was in the first 25 characters (ie “Prime Real Estate”).

Despite common advice that a consistent subject line helps open rates, ClickZ found the opposite:

More people were opening and engaging with the newsletter when they knew what would be covered. Though consistency was impacted by the change, the insight provided by the title allowed people to determine if it would be worth reading.

When people knew ahead of time that they would be interested in what the email had to say, they engaged more with the content as well.

Here at AWeber, we tested direct, relevant subjects against creative, sometimes ambiguous subject lines.
The more direct subject lines were the clear winners. Though the creative subjects could be intriguing in the inbox, if people weren’t sure what they were going to gain from opening it, they were less likely to do so.
These are the subject lines we tested, organized by style:

Are Blacklisted Link Shorteners Getting Your Emails Blocked?Grow Your Email List 99% Faster: How One Site Did It43 Free Animated GIFs For Your Email CampaignEmail Timing: A Look At 6 MarketersEmail Marketers, Here’s What to Watch For in 2012What Do Teens Really Think Of Email?Customer Spotlight ? SEER InteractiveAWeber’s AWesome Anthony A.Selling Digital: The Perfect Last-Minute Christmas GiftGetting Earth-Friendly Beyond EmailThreadless’ Frequency Alert: Hot or Not?Why You Want Your Emails Filtered

The clear subject lines outperformed the creative ones in every metric. These were the numbers:

The split tests above give just a small snapshot of what’s possible when it comes to testing your subject lines. There are so many variables that go into the subject that it’s important to take them all into consideration, then test them one at a time.
Some variables to consider, courtesy of The WordStream Blog:

Length (does shorter or longer work better for your audience?)Personalization (including their name or other details in the title?)Use of Numbers (are they better spelled out or as numerals?)Question Marks and other icons (Eye catching or annoying?)Humor (Do people respond well to jokes or do they prefer a straightforward approach?)Scarcity tactics (Do people act on urgency?)

As always, even if you think you know what your subscribers like best – it’s worth the test.

There is a lot of research out there about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to headlines. Though these aren’t hard and fast rules, we want to give you some of the highlights to make your tests more effective.

In short, the spam filter. A few things to steer clear of:

CAPS LOCK IN YOUR SUBJECT LINELots of punctuation!!!!!!Spammy words such as free, winner, or profitsAny combination of these things

Though these tactics might catch someone’s eye in their inbox, if they’re coupled with other spam concerns, they’ll be caught in the spam filter first.

Convince your reader, through the subject line, that your content is worth their time and won’t take up too much of it.
According to Copyblogger, there are a few key things that accomplish this:

“How to” headlinesHeadlines with numbers, indicating a listSimple, direct statementsHeadlines that sound like news, not an adThe use of “you”

Use these tips, consider your variables and run some tests! We’d love to hear your findings in the comments section.

Check out Split Testing Sign Up Forms For More Subscribers to learn more about building your list with split tested sign up forms.

How Split Testing Sign Up Forms Get More SubscribersHow to Get Higher Email Opens By Split Testing Subject Lines?(this article)How Split Testing Your CTA Will Boost Your BusinessPrint This Post By: Katie Pilot
Katie Pilot was a Marketing Intern at AWeber. Subscribe to This Blog by Email There are no trackbacks for this post yet.

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