The subject line of your email message is important for the success of your email campaigns.
To set the subject line of an email message, first, either open an existing email or start a new one. Go to Outbound > New Message or Drafts. You can also go to Content > Email Templates to begin from a template.
In the editor, you need to fill in the Subject line field. Note email Title is internal to Act-On & does not need to be the same as your email subject line.
Best Practices
- Avoid using too many keywords associated with spam email. Nearly all recipients are behind some sort of spam filter, which will flag or remove your message in the recipient's mailbox based on a formula with multiple factors, but your verbiage can sometimes be one of the factors.
- Avoid saying 'free' or using all capital letters or punctuation marks
- Avoid using more than one of the following: 'help', 'percent off', '%', 'sale', and 'reminder'
- It is OK to use these words in moderation. Spam filtering typically works by assigning your message a score, and certain keywords are sometimes a contributing factor to this score (but some spam filters do not check the content at all). One word triggering an increased score may not necessarily get your email hidden from the recipient.
- The above also applies to your email message's content just as much as the subject line
- Include content of interest inside your subject line when appropriate
- For example, if you are creating your March sales promotional email, you might state in the subject line what it contains that is different from February
- Consider, 'If I were my target reader, does this sound like something worth opening?
- Keep it short -- under 50 characters if you can
- Remember that this applies to the content of your email message too. Recipients are reading through their inboxes quickly. The reader needs to see the full subject line clearly, even at a glance. Unless your audience specifically responds to lots of text, keep your paragraphs and sentences short. A good rule of thumb is to have a subject line that has a max of 2-3 punctuations.
- Don't try any 'tricks' since they can lower reader trust
- Avoid excessive use of special characters, symbols, or emojis. They may make your subject line stand out, but not necessarily in a good way.
- Set your reader's expectations
- The secret to a good subject line is to simply describe what's inside. Call to specific details in your email or highlight a main point. Let the reader know what they are getting into.
Dynamic Subject Lines
Any columns in your lists or segments can be used in your email subject lines – the field data will be filled in dynamically for each recipient. Simply type the column name, with a pair of curly brackets around it, into the subject area using personalization brackets. For example, using the "Company" column, the subject:
We have news for {{Company}}!
will look like this:
We have news for Act-On Software!