Subject Lines Live – Best of March 2022

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]How were Spotler customers March-ing their messages into the inbox the last month?

The Top 5

Please Return your Thermoflex and DecraLed Packaging for Recycling

100%? Yes, we had to take a second look as well!

The purpose of this exercise was to learn what really makes a powerful subject line, and 12 months in, we have our answer. Longer than you might expect, but polite, and to the point. Its eco-friendly message probably didn’t hurt either.

Thank you for downloading the [sender] Wellbeing guide

We’ve been advocates of delivering your resources by email for a long time, so it’s good to see our customers having success with it.

The advantage is that this is one email that your reader definitely wants, so it’s a good chance to establish your sending domain, your email style, and even the sender name you use in the reader’s mind. If you make these things consistent with other emails, the reader is more likely to recognise and remember you.

Your link to join the TPR Seminar Series: Introduction

The advice to deliver what you promise and keep it simple is never more important than with event logistics.

It was no surprise that the number of webinars exploded while the world was locked down, and in-person events became impossible. However, it has taken the Spotler team by surprise how slow the return to in-person has been. Clearly, this will depend upon your individual audience, but in our case, the preference for online events has remained very strong even as restrictions have eased.

Congratulations on your offer #[Person/FirstName]#

Celebrate your audience’s wins!

This is from a higher education institute, so an offer is the first stage of onboarding for their annual intake of students. It’s important to remember that most students will have multiple offers to choose between, so the “deal” is not signed at this stage. That’s why setting a positive and excited tone matters; it might just be the deciding factor between them and another college or university.

Poynton Relief Road – Traffic Management Update

A repeat visitor to the top 5, the lesson from this subject line is that people care about simple things that will affect them. It’s also hyper-specific, focusing on a single road.

The Rest of the Bunch

Average Score: Trending Down

The average CTR for all of March was 16.22%, down from 20.5% in February

Average Length: Trending Up

41 to 50 characters remained the most common bracket. We also saw a clustering effect, with 31 to 40 and 51 to 60 characters close behind. Between them, these 3 brackets accounted for more than half the subject lines we analysed this month.

Personalisation: Trending Up

Personalisation enjoyed a small bump in usage in February, from 11% to 14%. This is good to see, as personalised subject lines performed 54% better than non-personalised (23.13% CTR vs. 15.01%).

Emojis: Trending Up

A big jump here! Twice as many subject lines used emojis in March compared to February. However, that still only meant 5% of subject lines used emojis.

Measuring their relative performance confirms that emojis do not offer an advantage, although the gap dropped below one percentage point for the first time since we started counting.

Sender Name: Trending Up

2% more subject lines included the Sender’s Name in March than in February.

As measured by CTR, it varies widely month-to-month whether or not the Sender’s Name is a positive addition. In March it swung towards “no” by a small margin

Type

Sales/Marketing sends continue to dominate, with 46% of the total in March, a little up on February. Newsletters fell to their lowest share since November, while Events content continues to build steam. Functional emails stay still at around one-quarter of the total.

Sending Day

After 2 months of Monday being the most effective day, Sunday earned its crown back in March, with an average CTR of 29.14%.

Monday remains the leader among business days, and Tuesday remains the worst day of all, once again failing to pull in double digits.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]