Addicted To 1’s and 0’s

Get Better Open Rates On Emails - The Easy Way

Friday, May 30th, 2008 | Uncategorized

Tired of poor open rates on that email newsletter you send out? The problem might not be the subject content, but actually it’s length.

Dela Quist, CEO of Alchemy Worx (a London based agency) claims that through massive amount of analytics that he has discovered the perfect length for your subject line to increase the open rate.

In an article put out by MediaPost, he states that having your subject line be close to 50 characters is the primo length - claiming to have found this after going through over 250 million messages sent over the past two years with over 660 different subject lines. “A 50-character subject line touting a ‘powerful’ offer is appealing (30% off Spring Getaway flights to Florida on Delta).”

He also says that the longer, 80 character-plus subject lines result in higher open rates as well. The example he gave when delivering his findings last Saturday at MediaPost’s Email Insiders Summit was a subject line used to describe the contents of a newsletter - “Find out Secrets to Spice up your Barbecue this weekend and all Summer Long and enter to win a New Weber Grill.”

Having a subject line thats less than 50 characters, or between the 60-70 character range, resulted in a decrease in delivery as well as open-rates.

He was quick to admit that this theory goes against “traditional” wisdom used to optimize email campaigns but cites his research as proof. Either way, it is an interesting theory to check out. Any comments or first-hand experience with this phenomenon would be appreciated. Was this coincidence or is 50 really the magic number?

Tags: analytics, email, email campaigns, Marketing, optimization