Are certain words in email subject lines responsible for higher open rates? Yes, according to new research from Alchemy Worx.
Using data from Touchstone, a subject line analysis tool, Alchemy Worx has come up with a list of words that can help or harm campaign performance. The data comes from the Touchstone database of over 21 billion emails across multiple sectors. The tool is used by 2,500 or so email marketers to optimise email subject lines.
“The subject line is the most important part of an email and the data from Touchstone analysed the subject line in its entirety to show that a single word or symbol can make a dramatic difference,” says Alchemy Worx founder Dela Quist. “While existing tools focus on individual words to compare performance, Touchstone is unique in its study of both words and the full subject lines in order to give a more accurate prediction of performance.”
Results of the analysis show that words such as ‘content’, ‘policy’, ‘offer’ and ‘benefits’ all raised email opens above the average. Meanwhile, subject lines including the words such as ‘Friday’, ‘Monday’, ‘double’, ‘everyone’ and ‘videos’ generated lower than average open rates.
The research also looked at words by sector. For example, for a travel firm the word ‘holiday’ outperformed ‘vacation’ and ‘chance’ performed better than ‘choice’. Insurance firms saw ‘policy’ raise up opens more so than ‘accident’.