Are your email subject lines generating the open rates you need?
Your subject lines should have these five qualities to capture and convert your recipients!
What gets people to open your emails? Is it your hard-to-resist offer? Your amazing products, perhaps? How about we take a step back—what’s the first thing your target recipients see in their inboxes? When you frame it that way, it’s undoubtedly your subject lines.
Subject lines are what will make or break your email’s chances of getting opened. They act as your storefront within your recipient’s inbox—the attention grabber for your email.
If it sounds shady, too unfamiliar, SPAMMY, and just downright irrelevant—then your email is taking a one-way trip to the Spam Folder.
Subject lines can affect a number of your metrics, namely your open rates and your click-through rates.
So, what do winning subject lines look like? What’s the strategic process behind them? We’ve compiled the top five subject lines we observed worked for our client brands to answer just that!
80% email open rates? How?
The secret's out: we've complied the tried-and-tested best subject lines from real campaigns of 7-to-8 figure eCom stores!
1. Are Your Subject Lines Highly Personalized?
Let your recipients know what the email is, who’s it for, and who’s it from. Here’s one of our winning examples from one of our beauty brand clients:
“[Order Confirmation] {first name}, welcome to the (company name) fam!”
Open rate: 88.74%
Recipients immediately see all the necessary information they need to know that tells them that email is directly relevant to them.
In other words, if you know that your customers are expecting a specific email from you, be sure to include that info in your subject lines.
The subject line above came from an email that’s sent after customers made a purchase and registered their emails to a store’s website.
2. Do Your Subject Lines Get Straight to the Point?
Conciseness is key when writing winning subject lines. In fact, keeping your subject lines under 50 characters can boost your open rates by 12%.
Focus on the most important information your customers need to know. For this subject line, update your customers on their order:
“We’re packing your order!”
Open rate: 80.43%
Simple and straight to the point. It already tells your customer that the email should contain details on their order.
Long and ‘fluffy’ subject lines could come off as spammy to your customers, so just focus on short and concise subject lines.
3. Do You Inject Some Fun and Creativity into Your Subject Lines?
Creativity is what will help your emails stand out from a crowded inbox. Here’s one of the fun subject lines from pet bed brand Pupnaps used for their Welcome Email:
“A warm tail-wagging welcome, {{first_name|default:’mate’ }}!”
Open rate: 84.42%
While you ARE a business, don’t forget to add a much-needed human touch to your customer engagement. Helping put a smile on your customers’ faces might just be enough to help seal the deal.
4. Do They Highlight Any Benefits or Incentives?
Your customers will always internally ask themselves this question: What’s in it for them when opening your emails?
One way to help answer that question is by mentioning rewards, benefits, or incentives in your subject line. Here’s one subject line from device charger accessories brand ChargeASAP:
“Surprise! We just supercharged your discount!”
Open rate: 68.86%
Specifically, this was from an email that followed up an earlier discount offer. Customers love being rewarded for doing stuff, so highlight that reward to get them clicking!
5. Are You Reminding Your Customers of Something Important?
Finally, you can use your subject lines as a convenient and thoughtful reminder for your customers. Here’s one from jewelry and accessories brand Modus:
“Hey {{ first_name|default:‘there’ }}, still want this item?”
Open rate: 59.62%
As you’ve probably guessed, this kind of subject line works best for cart recovery emails. Other reminders could cover nearly expired discount codes or sales nearing their end.
This shows your customers you’re thinking of them, helping them feel valued by your brand.
Are there more high-performing subject lines I can have a look at?
These best practices only cover the tip of the iceberg. We’ve collected tons of winning subject lines from our services to our clients—all available for your personal research!
Inside you’ll find:
- The best-performing email subject lines we’ve observed used by our clients
- Email subject line performance stats
- Actual open rates for every email (so you can see the results!)
80% email open rates? How?
The secret's out: we've complied the tried-and-tested best subject lines from real campaigns of 7-to-8 figure eCom stores!
Key Takeaways
Lifecycle marketing is responsible for the long-running and sustainable eCommerce success of many 7 to 8-figure brands.
Customer-centricity is key to future-proofing your DTC store.
Customer retention is more cost-efficient and overall presents a more long-term and sustainable growth solution for eCommerce businesses.
Leverage direct marketing channels to establish direct communication with your customers as well as bring forward products and services that they would be interested in.
Omnichannel marketing is important to help tie all your existing marketing channels together for a seamless and consistent customer experience.
