Subject Line: The Ultimate Email
Subject Line: The Ultimate Email
SUBJECT LINE
SWIPE FILE
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CONTENTS
8 ELEMENTS 04
2018 07
Top 10 Subject Lines 08
91 More Subject Lines 13
2017 17
Top 10 Subject Lines 18
91 More Subject Lines 23
2016 26
Top 10 Subject Lines 27
90 More Subject Lines 32
2015 35
Top 10 Subject Lines 36
90 More Subject Lines 41
2014 44
Top 10 Subject Lines 45
91 More Subject Lines 50
2013 53
Top 10 Subject Lines 54
90 More Subject Lines 59
EXTRA RESOURCES 62
2018: Top-Notch Subject Lines 63
2016: 5 Free Tools 67
2015: Should You Test That? 70
2014: 10 Worst Subject Lines of 2014 74
Table of Contents | 3
HERE ARE THE TOP
8 ELEMENTS YOU’LL
FIND IN HIGH-OPENING
SUBJECT LINES:
1 SELF-INTEREST
These are your bread and butter subject lines—you should be using them
most frequently.
They are usually direct and speak to a specific benefit your audience will
gain by opening the email.
2 CURIOSITY
If self-interest subject lines work because they
communicate a direct benefit of opening the
email, curiosity-based ones succeed for the exact
“THEY PIQUE
opposite reason. THE INTEREST
OF SUBSCRIBERS
They pique the interest of subscribers without WITHOUT GIVING
giving away too much information, leading to AWAY TOO MUCH
higher opens. INFORMATION,
LEADING TO
Be careful though, because curiosity-based HIGHER OPENS.”
subject lines can get old fast and are the most
likely to miss their mark.
8 Elements | 4
3 OFFER
Do you like free stuff? Do you like to buy things?
4 URGENCY/SCARCITY
This is the most powerful type of subject line you
have at your disposal.
“THIS IS THE
Subject lines that communicate urgency and MOST POWERFUL
scarcity tell readers they must act now. TYPE OF
SUBJECT LINE
Too many of these can lead to list exhaustion, YOU HAVE AT
so use sparingly and, of course, only when there YOUR DISPOSAL.”
is truly a deadline, limited quantity, or limited
availability.
5 HUMANITY
Don’t forget to remind your list about the person or people behind your
products.
Sometimes you need to thank your subscribers, tell them a story about
yourself, or make a human appeal for their attention.
8 Elements | 5
6 NEWS
Keeping your audience informed about new developments in your field
builds authority and keeps your open rates high.
These subject lines often work well when combined with a curiosity
element.
7 SOCIAL PROOF
A fundamental characteristic of humans is that we look to the behavior of
others when making decisions.
You can leverage this in your email subject lines by mentioning individual’s
success stories, familiar names, or highlighting how many people are
already using a product or service.
8 STORY
Telling a story, or at least teasing the beginning of one, in your subject
line is a unique way to highlight a benefit and get the open rate you’re
looking for.
8 Elements | 6
‘18
THE TOP 10 EMAIL
SUBJECT LINES
OF 2018...
2018 | 7
10
To:
Subject:
4 Lessons Molly Pittman Learned from
Running 1,573 Facebook Ad Campaigns
9
To:
Subject:
“Frankly my dear, I don’t Instagram.”
7
To:
💍
Subject:
NAME, Will You Marry Me?
5
To:
Subject:
[Best of the Blog] 5 Copywriting Elements
to Test on Your Landing Page
3
To:
Subject:
[Announcing DigitalMarketer Lab+] Digital
Marketing University
1
To:
Subject:
[NAME’s Last Reminder] Up to 90% off our
best-selling products gone in 3…2…1…
2017 | 17
10
To:
Subject:
I promise it’s worth it…
9
To:
Subject:
4 Critical Questions Every Business Must
Answer
7
To:
Subject:
[VIDEO] Social Media + Ecommerce Tech
Stack
5
To:
Subject:
Hiring a content marketer? Use this guide…
night
3
To:
⬆ , Refunds ⬇ , Retention ⬆
Subject:
Sales
1
To:
Subject:
T&C 2017 in Bora Bora?
2016 | 26
10
To:
Subject:
How “Ryan Deiss” became “DigitalMarketer”
9
To:
Subject:
Don’t buy this from Amazon!
7
To:
Subject:
I called. You didn’t answer.
5
To:
Subject:
Announcing: The 7th Annual Black Friday
Bootcamp
3
To:
Subject:
Steal these email templates…
1
To:
Subject:
Your new favorite marketing tool…
9
To:
Subject:
I’m pulling the plug…
7
To:
Subject:
How HostGator does retargeting
5
To:
Subject:
11 sneaky email tricks
3
To:
Subject:
The YouTube Gold Mine
1
To:
Subject:
23 bizarre products selling online
2014 | 44
10
To:
Subject:
[WEEKEND ONLY] Get this NOW before it’s
gone…
• Product: AuthorityROI
• Open Rate: 9.49%
• Analysis: This is a great example of a flash sale subject line. It
combines the urgency of limited availability with an element of
mystery. Keep in mind that these work best in very small doses.
9
To:
Subject:
The Facebook Slap is coming…
7
To:
Subject:
Your 7-figure plan goes bye-bye at midnight…
• Product: AuthorityROI
• Open Rate: 9.64%
• Analysis: Are you willing to wave goodbye to 7 figures? Most people
aren’t—this is another great example of curiosity and urgency working
in tandem to raise that open rate!
• Product: eCommerce EP
• Open Rate: 9.77%
• Analysis: This one is all about curiosity. Using questions in your subject
line is a great way to open a loop that your audience will want to close
by checking out the email’s contents.
5
To:
Subject:
A Native Ad in 60 Minutes or Less
3
To:
Subject:
Check out my new “man cave” [PICS]
• Product: eCommerce EP
• Open Rate: 10.24%
• Analysis: This is a fun blend of curiosity and humanity—it directly
addresses some value Ryan got, a sweet new “man cave,” in the
subject. Not only does this spark interest, but it reminds readers about
the human connection that brought them to DM in the first place.
• Product: AuthorityROI
• Open Rate: 10.79%
• Analysis: Once again, curiosity and urgency team up to create a
compelling subject line. If you are careful about using these sparingly,
you’ll find that they just work.
1
To:
Subject:
How (and why) to calculate Average
Customer Value
• Product: Blog
• Open Rate: 10.91%
• Analysis: Our number one email subject line, this blends all of the
good stuff. It gives you a metric that can improve you business, inspires
curiosity about why this number matters, and offers to help you figure
out how to calculate it.
2013 | 53
10
To:
Subject:
Breaking News…
9
To:
Subject:
Facebook traffic is dead?
7
To:
Subject:
Kindle bestseller in 4 days?
5
To:
Subject:
Facebook closing down?
3
To:
Subject:
How to scale your business
1
To:
Subject:
Can’t Make The Trip?
Extra Resources | 62
2018 7 TOP-NOTCH SUBJECT LINES
PULLED FROM THE VAULT (MY
SWIPE FILE)
Now that we’ve looked at our best email subject lines of 2018, it’s time to
look at the subject lines I’ve swiped from other companies. The senders on
this list include businesses working in marketing, financial SaaS products,
thought leadership, membership products, and ecommerce. Let’s get
started, and work our way to number 1.
7
To:
Subject:
(Last Minute) This Ugly Email Funnel
Generated $300k
• Sender: LeaderBox
• Analysis: This subject line is great because it hooks your attention with
a truth you already know. You deserve the best, of course! Hard to
argue with. And it really kicks into high gear when it builds on that idea
you’ve already accepted, by offering definition to what is likely a very
loosely defined concept. All you have to do to get the best is let the
email body define it for you. Self-interest plus curiosity nabs the email
open once again.
5
To:
Subject:
We’re trading wine for answers. You in?
• Sender: Winc
• Analysis: Something for nothing is always an intriguing offer. But in
a world overloaded with marketing messages, we often filter “too
good to be true” messaging out. This subject line gets around that by
pitching a real exchange. But email recipients know they’re making out
like bandits in this deal, and are only too happy to oblige.
3
To:
Subject:
Why YouTube Stars Are More Influential
Than Traditional Celebrities
• Sender: Torrid
• Analysis: A friend shared this one with me, but it quickly made its way
to the top of my list. The RE: prefix is always eye-catching in the inbox
because it usually accompanies emails from people, not brands. But
the real winner here is pairing ‘details’ with the phrase “future order.”
A bit cocky, sure. But our brains are always monitoring our outstanding
dopamine boosts—I mean, purchases. This leverages that unconscious
awareness and likely created a few “present orders.”
1
To:
Subject:
Official Notice: Your refund is waiting
I’ve used this free resource from Kissmetrics for more than two years
because it’s simple, free, and easy to use to get a read of whether or not
your split test results matter.
A pro tip for slightly more advanced users: you can easily increase the
font size as well by changing the value for “font-size” from 13 pixels to
whatever your heart (or email template) desires.
3 GifRocket
This one’s for Mac users only, but boy is it a doozy. If you’ve ever seen an
email with a “video” in it, most likely it was actually an email leveraging
GIFs. GIFs are graphics that store and show a series of images, creating an
experience similar to a short video.
For most people, making GIFs requires finding a graphic artist or hiring out
the task on Fiverr or TaskRabbit, a slow and often painful process.
But with GifRocket, anyone with a Mac and a video can create their very
own GIFs.
Combining this software with your smartphone camera can create some
magical moments, no technical skill required. All you need is a dash of
imagination!
CoSchedule created a free tool that helps you evaluate the efficacy of your
headlines. All you need to do is post your headline in their analyzer and
they will give you a score for how well you did, and how likely the headline
is to get your audience clicking.
The program identifies what kinds of words are used and how effective
they are at evoking an emotional response, or how eye-catching and
“powerful” they are.
Feel free to take their advice with a grain of salt—I tend to find them
overly critical of short subject lines which have been shown to work well.
But it’s a great resource if you’re looking for a second opinion.
5 Sender Score
This one’s a bit technical but is a must-use resource for anyone wanting to
make the most of their email marketing.
Do you feel like your emails don’t make it to the inbox as often as they
should?
The IP you use to send emails may have a bad reputation, literally.
With Sender Score, you can see the sender reputation that your emails
have, and figure out what mailbox providers like Google think of your
mails. This free tool from ReturnPath is a great way to keep an eye on the
more technical elements of your email marketing.
After all, with poor delivery, even the best subject line isn’t going to get
many opens. So go sign up for a free account and remember to keep an
eye on your score.
Now that you have our best subject lines of the year, you should be ready
to up your own game and start sending some emails.
We’re going to give you just a little bit more information to help you get
an extra bump…
Here are our three top performing email split tests of 2015.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t look at the metric because you
definitely should. It’s one of your top four email metrics to watch, along
with click-through rate, unsubscribe rate, and earnings per click (EPC).
But here’s a great split test that shows why you can judge a campaign by a
single metric.
We ran this subject line split test in March of this year. These were the two
subject lines.
The “Little _______ = big sales [QUIZ]” beat out the other one, but the
results weren’t significant. So at first glance, the test was a wash. However,
on closer examination, the subject line “This is why your prospects aren’t
buying” actually had more clicks.
A LOT more.
2015: Should You Test That? | 70
We saw a statistically significant lift of 18% in click-throughs for the second
subject line. The reason? The other headline pre-qualified openers by
highlighting a pain they were feeling in their business.
That’s one of the risks with curiosity headlines—they drive more opens
but people don’t know what they are getting into when they open. So for
more complex or expensive offers, direct and pain-based subject lines can
produce better results. Don’t overdo it on the doom and gloom though; a
little bit of negativity goes a long way and too much can turn subscribers
off your emails.
We also compared the performance and found that the earnings per click,
the amount of money we made for every person who clicked through the
email, was 38% higher for the email with CSS buttons.
These symbols are the little pictures that show up in your inbox, including
☼,★,☂, and ①. Since Unicode symbols are coded in computer systems
like alphabet characters and numbers, they can be displayed on multiple
browsers and devices.
Across all kinds of topics and subject lines, we’ve found that Unicode
symbols produce a consistent 8% bump in email opens. So these can be
a great way to squeeze everything you can out of a big promotion or help
push visitors to a particularly strong blog post.
We’re also sharing our top 10 worst emails of 2014 and picking them apart
to find why exactly they didn’t work.
For these, we looked at emails with the highest unsubscribe to open ratio.
Not only did these miss the mark, they drove our audience away! We’re
going to work backward, starting with the 10th most unpopular email.
10
To:
Subject:
[85% Discount GONE] Blog launch
“checklist on steroids” price increasing…
8
To:
Subject:
321% higher conversions using THIS…
6
To:
Subject:
3-Part Followup Series [Download]
4
To:
Subject:
43% discount GONE at midnight…
2
To:
Subject:
[GONE TONIGHT] Native Ads training OVER
at MIDNIGHT