Boost Email Open Rates With 7 Subject Line Hacks
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The document discusses 7 subject line hacks that can boost email open rates. It discusses analyzing historical email data to determine that subject lines with 4-7 words performed best. It also discusses testing subject lines that include bracketed content descriptions, using preview text under the subject line, segmenting subscribers based on recent engagement, using rhyme and lists in subject lines, and including social proof from others' experiences. The key lessons are to test different subject line structures and lengths, provide context about email content, re-engage inactive subscribers, and leverage persuasive psychological techniques like rhyme, lists and social proof.
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Boost Email Open Rates With 7 Subject Line Hacks
- 1. 7 Subject Line Hacks to Boost Open Rates Mike Madden Sr. Manager, Demand Generation CoE & Strategy Marketo
- 2. Proprietary & ConfidentialProprietary & Confidential Housekeeping Page 2© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential • This webinar is being recorded! Slides and recording will be sent to you after the webinar concludes. • Have a question? Use the chat box and I’ll get to your questions after the webinar. • Posting to social? Use our hashtag - #mktgnation • Curious to learn more email best practices? Come to Marketing Nation Summit, April 29th – May 2nd in San Francisco! • There is a brief survey after the webinar
- 3. Proprietary & ConfidentialProprietary & Confidential What is A/B Testing? 1 Testing Methodology 2 The 7 Hacks to Boost Open Rates 3 Conclusion 4 Agenda Page 3© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential
- 4. Page 4© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential What is A/B Testing? A/B testing, also known as split testing, compares two versions of the same campaign on a certain channel. These channels include (but are not limited to): Website Social Media Emails Mobile Apps Landing Pages Digital Ads
- 5. Page 5© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Why is A/B Testing Important? A/B testing increases engagement with your buyers A/B testing enhances campaign effectiveness and optimizes programs for a company’s target audience A/B testing enhances a marketer’s awareness and expertise about audience preferences
- 6. Page 6© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential The A/B Testing Workflow Choose one element to test Ask a question / write a hypothesis Decide on the sample group Define what success looks like Set up the test Look at the test results Determine the winner Implement the new control
- 7. Page 7© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Be Sure to Use Statistical Significance Calculators!
- 8. Page 8© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 1 THE PERFECT LENGTH FOR SUBJECT LINES
- 9. Page 9© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Subject Line Length – What Folks Say Common Questions: • What is the right amount of characters for subject lines? • Are shorter subject lines better? • Does subject line length even matter? • How much do subject lines influence click rates? What the Industry Says: • Marketing Sherpa – 61-70 character subject lines have the highest read rate. • MarketingProfs – subject lines with 1-20 characters have the highest open rates, CTRs, and click-to-open rates. • SendGrid – 3 word subject lines have the highest engagement rates
- 10. Page 10© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential How Did We Find Our Right Answer? Historical Data All marketable names, last engagement date in past 1 year, marketing job titles Hundreds of Subject Lines Over 2.4 million emails sent Subject Lines range from 4- 10+ words
- 11. Page 11© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Steps to Analyze Historical Data Step 1 • Exported historical data for emails sent in the last 12 months Step 2 • Isolated email group to promotional sends only (excluded operational emails) Step 3 • Included historical data metrics beyond open rates like click- to-open rate, click-through-rate, and unsubscribe rate Step 4 • For each specific word count, found average open rate and click-to-open rate
- 12. Page 12© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Average Metrics by Word Count Details: • Highest Open Rate = 4 words at 18.26% • Highest Click-to-Open Rate = 7 words at 10.80% 4 Words 5 Words 6 Words 7 Words 8 Words 9 Words 10+ Words Avg. Open % 18.26% 17.10% 15.30% 15.20% 12.20% 10.30% 13.70% Avg. CTO 8.00% 7.90% 10.10% 10.80% 6.60% 10.60% 7.90%
- 13. Page 13© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Normalized Data Using Average Metrics 4 Words 5 Words 6 Words 7 Words 8 Words 9 Words 10+ Words Sent 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 Open Rate 18.26% 17.10% 15.30% 15.20% 12.20% 10.30% 13.70% Opens 18,260 17,100 15,300 15,200 12,200 10,300 13,700 Click to Open 8.00% 7.90% 10.10% 10.80% 6.60% 10.60% 7.90% Clicks 1,461 1,351 1,545 1,642 805 1,092 1,082 Highest Overall Engagement (Clicks) = 7 Words
- 14. Page 14© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential ‒ Your data can tell you the perfect subject line length ‒ Focus on the right word length, not character length (it’s easier) Proprietary & Confidential
- 15. Page 15© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 2 ADD IN [BRACKETS]
- 16. Page 16© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 3 Key Elements of Every Subject Line
- 17. Page 17© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Our [Bracket] Test Control: Test: Test Details: • [Brackets] contain the content type like ebook, infographic, worksheet, webinar, etc. • Copy stays the same – brackets are the only variable tested • Audience: Early stage, marketing titles, engaged in the past 1 year • 6 email campaigns, 12 total emails, 175k emails sent
- 18. Page 18© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential [Bracket] Test Results Details: • Open rates increased by 4% (100% statistical significance) • Click-through-rates increased by 47% (100% statistical significance) • Click-to-open rates increased by 41% (100% statistical significance) Email Sent Delivered % Delivered Opens % Opened Clicks CTR CTO Unsub % Unsub Control 87825 85139 96.9% 9855 11.6% 562 0.7% 5.7% 112 0.1% [Bracket] Test 87787 85242 97.1% 10300 12.1% 829 1.0% 8.0% 114 0.1% 100 100 100 104 147 141
- 19. Page 19© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential ‒ Context > Creativity ‒ If the subject line provides additional clarity on the email content, click to open rates can increase Proprietary & Confidential
- 20. Page 20© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 3 INCLUDE PREVIEW TEXT
- 21. Page 21© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential What is It? What Does It Do? Preview Text is a piece of copy pulled from the body of an email that appears underneath the From Name and Subject Line. It builds on the subject line by adding additional context. From Name Subject Line Preview Text
- 22. Page 22© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Tips for Optimizing Preview Text Pay Close Attention to Character Counts • Depending on the device, your preview text may be limited to character counts. Be concise! Front-Load Actionable Words • Use action verbs, numbers, eye-catchers like “hacks” or “tips”, etc. to promote curiosity Second Subject Line • This is another chance to engage your subscriber and entice them to open!
- 23. Page 23© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential A Few Things to Watch Out For… Allowing HTML code to show Forgetting to update the preview text Wasting the space with a “Having Trouble…” line
- 24. Page 24© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential ‒ Preview text is your second subject line, further enticing an open ‒ Don’t forget to update preview text, otherwise your copy won’t match! ‒ Play with subject line length…try short subject lines with long preview text Proprietary & Confidential
- 25. Page 25© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 4 CONSIDER RECENT (OR NOT RECENT) ENGAGEMENT
- 26. Page 26© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential In some cases, you have more ‘inactive’ subscribers in your database than active ones
- 27. Page 27© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential The New Subscriber off the “Happy” Path
- 28. Page 28© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Why Do Subscribers Become Inactive? Subscribers become inactive for various reasons, including: • Changed interests • Expectations not set appropriately • Too many emails • Job change • Irrelevant content • Too busy • Changed email address
- 29. Page 29© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Our First Reactivation Campaign Test VS SL: [New] The Definitive Guide to Digital Advertising
- 30. Page 30© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential The Winner Was The Reactivation Email! The Results: • 70% higher open rate • 325% higher click to open rate • 621% higher click through rate This email reactivated (engaged) 238% more subscribers than our control!
- 31. Page 31© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential ‒ Segment subscribers out by when they last engaged to stay relevant ‒ Developing a reactivation strategy will help boost open rates in your inactive portion of the database Proprietary & Confidential
- 32. Page 32© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 5 RHYME
- 33. Page 33© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Why Do People Love Rhymes? It’s Science! Rhyming produces rhythm, which gives writing a pulse, a beat, and a musical element. Most importantly, it’s more memorable. Rhymes… • Tell the eyes where to go next • Create a sense of hanging, which pushes the reader to keep reading • Tells you what’s connected to what • Tells you where to stop
- 34. Page 34© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Great Examples of Rhyming Subject Lines 5 Metrics that Measure Movement
- 35. Page 35© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 6 USE LISTS
- 36. Page 36© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Why Do People Love Lists? It’s Also Science! Lists condense larger, more complex ideas into easily consumable ideas. Lists… • Scannable • Create FOMO • Feel simple to absorb • Feel less time-consuming • What you see is what you get
- 37. Page 37© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Great Examples of Subject Lines with Lists 17 Email Rules You Have to Break
- 38. Page 38© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential 7 USE SOCIAL PROOF
- 39. Page 39© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Why Do People Love Social Proof? It’s Science! Social Proof is using third party influence to market to potential customers. Social Proof… • Builds trust • Produces FOMO (everyone else is doing it) • Validate your products (testimonials) • Can be backed by numbers (and remember people love lists) • “You’re not the only one” • Stories based on social proof deepen connections
- 40. Page 40© Marketo, Inc. 3/27/2018 Proprietary & Confidential Great Examples of Subject Lines with Social Proof How 1,000 Marketers Doubled Email Open Rates
- 42. Featured Sessions Email Deliverability Manager, Marketo Carmi López-Jones Email Deliverability 101: Winning The Inbox Wars (Workshop) Director of Client Services, Digital Pi Jessica Kao Analytics That Matter: Reports for Every Stage of the Funnel Sr. Manager, Marketing, Marketo Michael Madden Secrets Flat Out Stink – Let’s Reveal Marketo’s Secrets to Demand Generation
- 43. Join thousands of marketers for a unique event, designed by Marketers for Marketers. Why You Should Attend: Marketing Nation Summit is the industry’s leading digital marketing gathering, bringing together 6000+ of the best & brightest marketing minds. April 29 – May 2, San Francisco https://events.marketo.com/summit/2018
Editor's Notes
- And with that let’s get going!
- And with that let’s get going!
- A/B testing, also known as split testing, compares two versions of the same campaign on a certain channel. These channels include (but are not limited to): Website Social Media Emails Mobile Apps Landing Pages Digital Ads For example, you could set up a subject line test for adding in personalization (i.e. the person’s first name). Your company hasn’t done that before, but you hope to find that adding in that element will increase overall email engagement. After running the test, you find that adding in the person’s first name increases open rates by 10%, does nothing to click to open rates, but improves conversions on the landing page by 50%. As in this example, A/B testing is about testing only one element at a time so that marketers can maintain control over the results and draw firm conclusions. From these conclusions, marketers are able to assess the effectiveness of each variable in driving conversions and from there, can make the necessary adjustments to their campaign. By making these necessary adjustments, marketers are able to continue improving their efforts in order to deliver the ROI possible to their organization.
- So why is A/B testing important? By assessing the actions of buyers, A/B testing reveals what truly appeals to them. In doing so, it also advances engagement, campaign effectiveness, and marketer expertise. Here are a few specific reasons why A/B testing should be a part of your company’s marketing strategy: A/B testing increases engagement with your buyers A/B testing enhances campaign effectiveness and optimizes programs for a company’s target audience A/B testing enhances a marketer’s awareness and expertise about audience preferences
- So let’s say you’re ready to run an a/b test. How should you go about setting it up? Here’s the process I follow: Choose what to test – think about testing elements that you know would be high impact. Something like a sign-up page, welcome email, or pricing page would be a great place to start. Ask a question and then write a hypothesis – just like an scientific method, a/b testing begins with developing a hypothesis to answer a question. You can base your hypothesis on what has worked on other digital assets, insights from your colleagues or just plain old instinct! Decide on the sample group – who are they, what are their past behaviors, and how large is the sample size are critical details. Make sure your test segment is big enough to show results! Define what success looks like – here, you are trying to figure out what you’re trying to achieve through testing. What are your ultimate success metrics? What will you improve through testing and optimization? Set up the test – this one is straightforward enough. Look at the test results – use the success metrics you decided on earlier to evaluate your results. We will talk about this more in a moment. Determine the winning combination – which version performed better? Did it perform statistically better or just marginally? Was it statistically significant? Implement the necessary changes – roll out the changes, educate your team, create a process, and start working on the next test!
- For all of my tests, I use this simple a/b testing calculator by Kissmetrics! In the first column, you enter your total number of observations, which means if you’re doing landing page testing, this would be total page views. If you were doing subject line testing, this would be emails delivered. In the second column, it’s the total number of conversions. This is the actual success number. Between these two values, it gives you a conversion rate and a confidence interval for significance. Normally, you’ll find that calculators are set up for a 95% confidence interval, which means that in order for you to see statistical significance, you need to be at least 95% certain that your test results improve the conversion rate. If you didn’t use a calculator like this, you might be making changes that aren’t actually statistically significant, which can hurt your conversion rates and the ROI on campaigns.
- Well, here is how personalization works within Marketo and how we would normally personalize our emails. The top section here is a screenshot from the email editor. In the From Name box, you’ll see bracket text. Those are called tokens, which dynamically push in values pulled from fields. The tokens in the From Name send from the Lead Owner. If that email subscriber doesn’t have a lead owner, it will default to Team Marketo. Same principles apply to the From Address and Reply-to sections where if the email subscriber has a lead owner, that email will come from the lead owner’s email. If they don’t have a lead owner, it defaults to marketoteam@marketo.com. All emails were sent under these rules until…we tested it! What we found was extremely interesting.
- Well, here is how personalization works within Marketo and how we would normally personalize our emails. The top section here is a screenshot from the email editor. In the From Name box, you’ll see bracket text. Those are called tokens, which dynamically push in values pulled from fields. The tokens in the From Name send from the Lead Owner. If that email subscriber doesn’t have a lead owner, it will default to Team Marketo. Same principles apply to the From Address and Reply-to sections where if the email subscriber has a lead owner, that email will come from the lead owner’s email. If they don’t have a lead owner, it defaults to marketoteam@marketo.com. All emails were sent under these rules until…we tested it! What we found was extremely interesting.
- Introducing personalization in the beginning of a buyer’s journey might be worse for the buyer. Make the right business decision even if a test says otherwise. Use this test to find the right handoff point for personalization
- FAILURE TO MEASURE EMAIL INBOXING
- Preview text is a piece of copy that gets pulled into the preview pane from the body of an email. Think of it much like a “Johnson” box from a direct mail piece like it’s a peek into what the email really contains. The text will display underneath the From Name and Subject Line. Just like the [bracket] test, this helps to build context and trust.
- In some cases, you have more ‘inactive’ subscribers in your database than active ones
- In the example above, a new email address comes into your database on Jan 1. And on Feb 15th, that new email address made their first purchase! You celebrated and continued to market to them to the best of your ability. And boy oh boy, did they love what you sent them. In the engaged subscriber stage, they filled out web forms, clicked emails, engaged with your mobile app, and frequently visited your website. And then just like that, they went cold without even saying good bye. This happens far too often and companies do not take advantage of subscribers that once loved to engage with their brands and then fell asleep. This is how you isolate your sleepy subscribers.
- Subscribers become inactive for various reasons, including: Changed interests Expectations not set appropriately Too many emails Job change Irrelevant content Too busy Changed email address
- Here’s a Marketo example. We run reactivation campaigns and this was our very first test. Our audience was subscribers who had not engaged with our digital campaigns in 1 year or more. On the left, you’ll see our control, which was for the Definitive Guide to Digital Advertising. There is nothing different about this email in terms of messaging or content for a subscriber that hasn’t engaged in a while. On the right, you’ll see our test. The subject line for our test email was “First Name, We Really Miss You”. The banner reads “We Really Miss Hearing From You” and we use a sad looking dog to get the emotions going. And to use language that our email subscribers aren’t familiar with, we start with “Here’s the deal, Mike”. We let them know why we are reaching out. “At some point, you subscribed to Marketo emails. Ever since then, we’ve been emailing you our best ebooks, cheatsheets, definitive guides, and other marketing offers. But then we noticed something disturbing. You haven’t opened or clicked any of these emails in the past year!!!!” So far, we’ve provided context. This email then goes into saying how we don’t want to clutter your inbox with unwanted email and unless you click the big orange button (which you cannot see here), we won’t know it’s okay to keep sending you emails. Now let’s look at the results!
- We had a very clear winner here and it was our reactivation email! We saw a 70% higher open rate, a 325% higher click to open rate, and a 621% higher click through rate. I should also add that we called out the link to our subscription center in this email as well, so about half of the clicks we received were to update email preferences., which is a very positive result for this test. Overall, this email reactivated 238% more subscribers than our control email. That means that we now have a way to engage our sleepy subscribers in a way that is 238% better than our normal marketing efforts! Even better, we now have determined that there is a strategy where we can email our unengaged leads independent of our engaged leads, which leads to higher engagement, better sender reputation, better email deliverability, and higher open rates for both audiences!
- We know our customer has changed. That’s why 2018 is the year of the Fearless Marketer. A Fearless Marketer is fast, brave, and bold in the face of change. They embrace new technology, pioneer a path to deeper customer engagement, and bring others – team, organization, & peers – to new heights with inspirational leadership.
- Marketing Nation Summit is the industry’s leading digital marketing gathering, bringing together 6000+ of the best & brightest marketing minds. You’ll be inspired by 100+ thought leadership sessions for marketers of all types, connected through networking activities, empowered with hands-on opportunities to learn to use Marketo more effectively. And no one parties like the Marketing Nation - this year’s entertainment features Flo Rida!
- Alright, that’s all I have for you. Before I answer a few questions, I’d like to remind you that there is a brief survey after this webinar. Please take 30 seconds to complete it to let me know how we can make these better for you in the future. Now on to the questions! What do you think about the use of emojis in the email subject line? When testing new subject lines, is there ever a time where you feel like the copy needs to be tweaked too? Is it better to personalize subject lines with the subscriber’s first name?