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January 8, 2009
Sizing up E-Mail Subject Line Length
Guess which e-mail subject line performed better?
By most accounts, it should have been subject line 2 -- it's shorter and follows a best practice of including a numeral. That wasn't the case, however.
The first subject line is credited with providing a 23 percent lift in sales for a florist. Why? Thane Stallings, an Epsilon senior analytic consultant and the author of the white paper, "Rethinking the Relationship between Subject Line Length and Email Performance,," suggested it may be due to the absolute deadline "last chance" versus "48 hours." Plus, the first subject line referred to the holiday earlier in the subject line.
His advice?
--Front load subject lines with the most important information.
--Keep the subject line as short as possible to convey the message.
--Use longer subject lines only when there is a compelling reason to do so.
--When in doubt, test.
Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at January 8, 2009 2:28 PM
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Did the author actually read the paper? She got the title wrong, the author's name wrong (first AND last) and completely skipped the research to cite an anecdote.
Joseph Andrews January 8, 2009 10:38 PM
Wow, this was short. My experience though is that short email subject lines have shown better results, with the occasional exception. That's why you always have to test.
Email Marketing Blowout February 16, 2009 4:00 PM