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Email subject lines: Icons, urgency and

simplicity

Wednesday 27th May 2015 10.00 BST

Olly Beckett, Sr Database Marketing Manager, Expedia

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• cloud.IQ Marketing Director

• International speaker and trainer for

Econsultancy and Institute of Direct and

Digital Marketing (IDM)

• 15+ years experience in email marketing

• Worked with and trained brands including

Paul Smith, M&S, Schuh and many more.

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Kath Paykath.pay@cloud-iq.com@KathPay

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• Sr Database Marketing Manager at Expedia

• 10+ years experience in email marketing

• Guest speaker at the Direct Marketing

Association

• Extensive experience in global campaign

management

Your speaker

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Subject line relevance

Who are you trying to talk to?

• Increasing open rate: good

• Increasing open rate by sending the right subscribers to your site:better

• Example:Our best deals this weekOur best Flight deals this week

• Don’t lie or be too vague!

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• Are you only looking at open rates?

• How do your subject lines affect transactions?

Recommendations:

• A/B test subject lines against each other and roll out winner as part of send. Aim to do this as often as possible

• Decide which metric is most important for you; Shoppers, Orders etc - Be careful here; if Orders will be your main

metric then you will be reliant on website performance

• Use more than one metric to measure campaign success

CVR

Opens

CTR

Downloads

Shoppers

CTO

Subject line testing

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• How many sender names do you have?

• Use sender names to distinguish your most important programmes

• Do not use so many sender names that your subscribers are uncertain about who has sent your email

Sender names

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Icons ✈ ✂ ♫ ❄ ☀ ★ ♥ ❀ ✿ » ½☺ ♬ ♪

• Ensure icons work on all platforms and devices• Reserve for your most important campaigns• Icons also called UTF Symbols (this is a good source…remember to test!:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unicode_characters#Miscellaneous_Symbols)

• Don’t overuse:

This stands out

None of these do

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• Does urgency work for your subscribers?

• Example subject lines:

– Last chance to save!

– HURRY: Sale ends tonight

– Ending tomorrow: discounted flights

– 72HR SALE

• Tempting or off-putting?

Urgency

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• Short subject lines and email content

• Do you want subscribers to read your email or go to your website?

• More emails with little content can be more effective than few emails with lots of content

Keep it simple

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• Too much content can be too distracting

• Simple messages get your main point across quickly

• Test which works best for your subscribers

• Ideal situation: build an email with dynamic content relevant to individual subscribers

• Simple subject line = simple email

Keep it simple

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• Over 50% of people now read Expedia emails on a mobile device

• Those who read your emails on mobile may be a different type of customer Adapt your message accordingly

• Is pre-header now as important as subject line?

• If you’re too detailed in your pre-header it may put most of your subscribers off

Mobile

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• Automated process that generates numerous subject line combinations

• Hundreds of thousands of combinations tagged and used to target

• Used in both subject line and body copy

• Not possible to get to this level of targeting manually

Machine learnings

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• Expedia goal: Right Message, Right Person, Right Time

• Always test anything new, but don’t get too wrapped up in testing

• Check everything on Mobile (everything; sender name, subject line, eyebrow text, images…everything!)

• Start segmenting, even a little targeting goes a long way

Conclusion

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Next up: Cutting through the clutter in the

inbox – Exploring the Benefits of Real-Time

Email

Thursday 28th May 2015 11.00 BST

Dave Holland, European Regional Director, Liveclicker