Subject Line Shenanigans

In analyzing promotional emails sent during the holiday season, we found that the placement of the manufacturer’s brand name at the beginning of the subject line significantly improved the rate at which consumers opened messages.

Most effective email marketing programs send email on a regular schedule. The monthly program is a classic example. Consistency helps the marketer allocate resources in a predictable way, and consumers learn to expect it.

A marketer’s typical monthly routine is to come up with a topic, write the content, put it into a design (or template), and send. The process usually begins by answering a simple question: Should this month’s email be informational or promotional?

For example, a fishing equipment manufacturer sending an informational email could feature an in-depth interview with a sponsored pro who recently won the Bass Master Classic. A promotional email, on the other hand, might offer a rod and reel combination at a 25% discount for a limited time.

See an example of an informational email.

See an example of a promotional email.

Informational email builds the actual relationship with a consumer. If done well, an information email should also produce measurable results in sales (and pay for itself). Promotional email, though, focuses more specifically on maximizing revenue or increasing sales volume of a specific product.

While some emails combine promotional and informational messages, we think an email is generally perceived as one or the other by consumers. The point where the consumer forms his or her impression of an email is, naturally, at the subject line. Subject lines are short and to the point. True intent behind an email is almost always obvious when reading its subject line.

A subject line tells a consumer whether or not it is worth opening an email. Is she in the market for the advertised product and looking for a deal? A promotional subject line attracts her attention. Is she at work looking for a break from her daily routine? Information on her favorite pastime will be much appreciated.

Fun with Holiday Promotional Emails

With holidays at hand, Greg Squires and I wanted to run promotional emails for a group of Shopatron manufacturers, optimize subject lines (based on results), resend, and share what we learned about subject lines in promotional emails. We decided to analyze aspects of information emails another time.

We reached out to clients and learned that some manufacturers wanted to run less aggressive promotions than others. A handful of clients wanted to run free shipping promotions, while others wanted to try promoting products at regular prices (with no discount or special offer).

Free shipping is the Honda Accord of eCommerce promotions: unspectacular, ubiquitous, and reliable. When invoked in a subject line, free shipping can be counted on to deliver “opens” and “conversions.” An email is opened when it is clicked on or viewed; it is converted when a click results in an actual sale. We were sure the emails with “free shipping” in the subject line would give us enough action to test some theories on subject line wording.

But could we get “regular price” promotional emails to produce enough opens and conversions to try a few ideas on optimizing subject lines? Would it be possible to promote products at regular prices and get results near what we would see with free shipping promotional emails?

For the answers to these questions, keep reading.

Content & Design

Having decided our emails would be promotional, we had our topic: products. In a product promotional email, the content is product-related: pictures, descriptions, and prices. With the advice of each participating manufacturer, we selected two products for each email.

Our next step was the design. Shopatron’s graphic designers created an email template to be used for all emails. The design theme was focused on the holidays, with snowflakes and a winter look and feel. Text and images were balanced to highlight the product pictures and brand logos. Because we were going to test subject lines across multiple brands, we created a neutral design. All emails displayed the respective brand name in the “From” field.

Fig. 1 Examples of promotional emails sent. Schylling with free shipping offer (left) and Hog Wild with products offered at regular price (right).

Subject Line Selection

Most of the names in the email lists came from consumers who had purchased at a manufacturer’s online store and had opted to receive email. Based on the manufacturer’s instructions to run or not run a free shipping promotion, we put the lists of email addresses into one of two groups, which for the purposes of this study, we called Free Shipping and Regular Price.

Regular Price

For the Regular Price group, we brainstormed for subject line wording that would create an impulse in consumers to open the emails. The challenge, as stated earlier, was that there was no special reason for consumers to open the email, nothing to create a sense of urgency. Our conclusion, in theory, was that the brand name itself, from which they had already purchased, would be the most powerful word we could use.

Knowing that our theory could easily be wrong, we created two subsets within the Regular Price group. The first subset (Brand Name at Beginning) would receive email with the brand name at the front of each subject line. The second subset (Brand Name at End) would receive the opposite, with the brand name at the end of the subject line.

Free Shipping

The Free Shipping group, expected to generate higher rates of opens than the Regular Price group, was also divided into two similar subsets. We wanted to see if the brand name or the reference to free shipping at the beginning of the subject line had more power.

Results

In short, putting the brand name first in all cases garnered the most opened emails. For the Regular Price emails, putting the brand name first got 22.9% of delivered messages opened, while putting the brand name at the end got only 18.7% of delivered messages opened.

For Free Shipping emails, overall open performance was, as expected, better than the Regular Price emails. With Free Shipping as a powerful phrase, we were somewhat surprised to see the Free Shipping emails with brand name at the beginning of the subject line perform the best. 26.9% of Free Shipping messages delivered with the brand name at the beginning were opened, while only 19.6% of those with the brand name at the end of the subject line were opened.

When looking at conversions to purchases, the various combinations converted to sales at nearly the same rate. Free Shipping emails, for a similar number of emails sent, generated twice as much actual revenue, due to the average tickets of those sales being higher. (Free Shipping is offered with a minimum purchase requirement).

To get the most emails opened, it is best to place the brand name at the beginning of the subject line, and to include a free shipping offer. Free Shipping with Brand Name at the Beginning beat Regular Price with Brand Name at the Beginning by a solid 26.9% to 22.9%.

Still, our analysis of subject lines indicates that a promotional email, even without a discount or a free shipping offer, can produce reasonably good results.

Economics of Sample Set

Regular Price emails

• Cost $89 to send
• Generated sales > 40 times cost
• 16,149 emails delivered created 3,327 brand impressions (opens)

Free Shipping emails

• Cost $50 to send
• Generated sales > 80 times cost
• 8,691 emails delivered created 2,021 brand impressions (opens)

Lessons

• Free Shipping works better than Regular Price, but not as much as you would think.
• Brand names get consumers to open emails. Put the brand name at the front of the subject line.
• We created a real return on investment with a modest sample set of email addresses. Larger lists will produce more revenue.

Appendix

Thank you to International Playthings, Hog Wild, Ravensburger, Creativity for Kids, Schylling, and Scalextric for their participation and advice.

Shopatron launched the Email Marketing Club, EMC, in March 2007, making it easier for manufacturers to market with email and save money by pooling buying power. In December 2007 alone, EMC was used to send over 500,000 consumer emails. Our online marketing team helps manufacturers get started with EMC and develop long-term effective email campaign strategies. For more information, please contact your account manager or email clientservices@shopatron.com.