Among the most popular subject lines for my e-zine Wylie’s Writing Tips:

Now you see it

The Awwww Factor

Paint the schnauzer

One-sentence stories

Can you read me now?

Don’t commit verbicide

Pleading for shorter sentences

Want to write subject lines that get clicked? Make them entertaining.

Why write clever email subject lines?

Entertainment comprises 2 of the top 3 reasons people share information via email or social media, according to a study by Chadwick Martin Bailey, are:

1. Because I find it interesting/entertaining (72%)
2. To get a laugh (58%)
3. Because I think it will be helpful to recipients (58%)

In another study, three Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that subject lines that make recipients curious about the contents are more likely to get opened than those that don’t.

5 steps to crafting an entertaining subject line

So how do you write subject lines that are entertaining, funny or pique readers’ curiosity? Here are five ways:

1. Make it clever …

Try a little cheekiness, as in this subject line from RLM PR about a media barbecue with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos:

Jeff Bezos Has Great Buns

Or twist a phrase, like the fashion company River Island:

There’s no business like shoe business

Or steal a tip from Weather Underground and post a pun:

Weather to pack sunscreen or an umbrella

Or tie your message to a timely topic, as in this subject line from Ragan:

Mr. Rogers’ guide to healthy corporate culture

Note that while all of these subject lines are clever, they are also clear.

2. … But not too clever.

This Cato Fashions subject line bombed in a study by usability expert Jakob Nielsen:

Be Iconic

So did this clickbait subject line from AT&T:

Steven, wait until you see this!

As did this InterContinental Hotels subject line:

Open Your (I)s to the Wonders of the Sea

Users in the NNG studies complained of “irritatingly cutesy” subject lines. Ouch! Don’t let that phrase apply to your messages!

3. Have a personality.

Make your message personable. In one split test, SmartBrief invited readers to opt in to a newsletter. One subject line:

You’re not receiving your [industry] news

The other:

We’re sorry to see you go …

The second, more personable subject line increased the open rate by 50% and the number of subscribers by more than 60%.

4. Avoid clickbait.

Subject lines with clickbait phrases — won’t believe, shocking and secret of — reduced read rates by .34%, 1.22% and 8.69%, respectively, according to research by Return Path.

5. Avoid labels.

“CEO’s Christmas message” is a label subject line. What does she say in her message? That’s a lot more compelling.
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Source: “The Art And Science Of Effective Subject Lines” (PDF), Return Path, September 2015

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Eight out of 10 businesspeople and more than half of consumers use preview panes to decide whether to open an email, according to Lyris Technologies.

That makes the preview pane is one of the elements desktop and laptop readers consider when deciding whether to open or delete your email message.

Feel the pane

But the preview pane can be a pain to email communicators. According to a survey by EmailLabs:

• More than half of email recipients don’t see images in the preview pane because their companies or email programs block them. Counting on an image to get their attention? Chances are, you won’t get through.
• Three-quarters of email recipients who use a preview pane use it in a horizontal format. That means they can only see four inches or so of your message. However, one-quarter use a vertical pane, so you can’t count on that four-inch horizontal bar of real estate being seen by all your recipients.
• Nearly half look at just the first few lines to decide whether they want to read your message.

Overcome the pane barrier

How do you make the preview pane work for you?

• Sell your content in the top left corner. That two- to four-inch space is where horizontal and vertical panes intersect — and it’s all you can count on previewers viewing.
• Think horizontal. Your second most valuable real estate is the top two to four inches of your message.
• Tweet your key message. Most email systems preview the first 50-75 characters of a message. So write your opening sentence as a tweet — or more like half a tweet, suggests Steve Rubel.
• Focus on text, not graphics. Most people don’t see graphics in the preview pane, so make flags, logos and other images smaller and move them out of the upper-left corner.
• Move administrative information to an administrative center at the bottom of the message.

A world of pane

In this environment, it’s important to pay special attention to your “from” lines and subject lines. Three out of five email recipients say they consult those to decide whether they’ll even scan the information in the preview pane — or just delete it without looking.

Does your preview pane snag eyes? Take EmailLabs’ Email Preview Pane Rendering Quiz to find out.

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Sources:

“Strategies for Addressing the Challenges of Preview Panes and Disabled Images,” EmailLabs

Loren McDonald, “Designing Emails For the Preview Pane and Disabled Images,” EmailLabs, Oct. 28, 2005

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Call it the Goldilocks Conundrum: What character count is “just right” for subject line length?

If ever there were a question with an “it depends” answer, this is it. Before writing subject lines for your next email campaign, check out this research.

What can recipients see?

The number of characters displayed by devices and email clients — the weird term we use for Gmail, Apple Mail and other email service providers —varies widely. For instance, according to the Nielsen Norman Group:

• Outlook displays 78 characters on a browser at the full width of a 15″ laptop.
• Gmail on an iPhone displays 36-38 characters.
• Yahoo mail displays 38-42 characters on an iPhone before truncating the rest.

To avoid getting your subject line truncated, the folks at the Nielsen Norman Group recommend that you limit your subject line to 40 characters.

30 to 90 characters “is the dead zone, and will reduce the chances of opens and clicks in an email.”

— Adestra

But while the average desktop inbox displays about 60 characters, according to a study by Return Path, mobile devices display just 25 to 30 characters. With more than half of your audience members opening your email via smartphone, doesn’t it make sense to make this your standard?

The argument for limiting subject lines to what people can see is that you retain control of the message. After all, you don’t want your truncated subject line to say “lice” when what you wrote was “license.”

But that might be too short …

Longer subject lines perform better.

Longer subject lines boost response rates, according to Adestra, a U.K.-based email service provider. Its analysis of more than 1 billion emails showed that subject lines of:

• 90 characters and more produced the highest response rates.
• 30 characters or less also performed well.
• 30 to 90 characters “is the dead zone, and will reduce the chances of opens and clicks in an email,” write Adestra’s Parry Malm and Mark Bonner, the report authors.

Why is longer better? You can communicate more benefits with more characters, Malm and Bonner write.

Longer subject lines perform better for B2B

So, consider using 90 characters or more to communicate more benefits, Malm and Bonner suggest. More details boost subject line performance when subscribers are highly targeted, according to research by Mailchimp.)

Short subject lines perform better.

Super-short subject lines also perform well, according to Adestra. Subject lines with:

• Word counts of one or two (5 to 10 characters) are most likely to gain opens and clicks.
• More than 14 words come in second in terms of performance.
• Two to 14 words reduce clicks and opens.

Super-short headlines perform best in B2B

So consider using fewer than 30 characters for snappy subject lines promoting an offer or requesting action, Malm and Bonner suggest. But stay out of the dreary middle when you write subject lines.

Here’s more about dueling research on email subject line length.

But does it really matter?

Subject line length is just one of many factors that affects open rates. In fact, subject line length accounts for 0.1% of email open rate variance, Phrasee calculates.

Subject line length accounts for 0.1% of email open rate variance.

— Phrasee

That’s hardly a statistical significance.

Return Path had similar findings: “Overall, our research indicates that there is actually no correlation between the length of a subject line and its read rate.”

And MailChimp found that “For most users, there is no statistical link between subject line length and open rate. But for subscribers reading your campaigns on mobile devices, shorter may be better.”

Test subject lines.

The solution? Before you press Send on your next email marketing campaign, test your short subject line against a longer one. And let your recipients tell you what’s just right.

Learn more …

• What’s the best length for social media channels?
• What’s the best length for web pages?
• What’s the best length for news releases?

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Sources: Kim Flaherty, Amy Schade, and Jakob Nielsen; Marketing Email and Newsletter Design to Increase Conversion and Loyalty, 6th Edition; Nielsen Norman Group, 2017

“The Art And Science Of Effective Subject Lines” (PDF), Return Path, September 2015

“True or False: Shorter Subject Line will give you Better Results,” upland Adestra, modified Oct. 17, 2019

Whitney Blankenship, 7 Email myths it’s time to stop following, Learn inbound, July 1, 2019

“What are some best practices in writing email subject lines?” MailChimp, Dec. 8, 2014

Parry Malm and Mark Bonner, “And the best subject line ever is …,” Adestra, 2012

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