Comments on: Personalizing Subject Lines – Does It Help Or Hurt Open Rates?

By: aakriti

aakriti — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:18:26 +0000

Thanks for the insightful article Ben.

My company has a significantly large opt-in list and we keep testing the efficacy of mailers on various parameters, including subject line.

However, what I have observed over the past yrs. is that the deliver-ability of the mails depend hugely on the email client. If one client decides to deem your mailers as SPAM, even though the list is home grown & opt-in, and complies to all anti-spam directives; the mail simply will not be delivered in the inbox.

By: Does "FREE" Make People Open Your Emails? | MailChimp Blog

Does "FREE" Make People Open Your Emails? | MailChimp Blog — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:30:32 +0000

[...] I recently blogged about some interesting A/B Split data that I’ve been sifting through for a report we’re working on. [...]

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:48:47 +0000

Yeah, exactly. I’m sitting on a pile of data that I really want to post now, but I have to sift through and remove quite a few of these improper A/B tests (where the user tested multiple variables at a time).

I do see a few more trends like the “FNAME” one above, and hope to get those posted soon too.

By: Mark Brownlow

Mark Brownlow — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 09:06:59 +0000

Very, very interesting! Thanks for this!

It also demonstrates the need to be careful with testing. As you point out, Examples 1 & 2 aren’t properly testing the value of personalized subject lines, because you can’t distinguish between the impact of adding personalization and the impact of removing the newsletter name.

Wonder what the open rate would have been, for example, for:

Acme Energy Challenge: FNAME’s December Newsletter