I recently had an email campaign go out to a list of 10,000 in Australia, thought it good to test some basic assumptions subject line and message format.
The tests run were first name in the subject line vs not, and a basic HTML template vs plain text. There were no images in the body of the email, so little incentive for people to enable images and thus open rates are probably lower than actual.
The first test was starting the subject line with the prospects first name, which is a fairly standard email formula. There was a 4% increase in open rates compared to the control, and was consistent across different variations (Firstname followed by comma, first name followed by hyphen).
Interestingly, unsubscribes were higher for the plain text emails and non-existent for the HTML versions.
The full results:
The second email in the sequence used only first name subject lines, and tested some body copy changes enhancing the exclusivity of the offer. Open rates higher than the first email, either due to familiarity with the sender, or a shorter email subject line.
Analysis by PinPointe seems to suggest that a very short subject line performs best of all (although begs the question if short + first name would get a double boost?)
What subject lines work well for you?
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