According to various studies and surveys summarized in the document: - Subject lines that clearly state an offer, promise of a discount or free shipping, or use the sender's brand name are most effective at attracting attention. - The average number of characters in email subject lines is between 38-47 characters. Shorter subject lines tend to outperform longer ones. - Personalizing only the subject line is less effective than no personalization at all.

1. Email Marketing Subject Statistics Brought to you by sendn.com

3. 38 to 47 characters is the average number of characters that show up in the subject line of 57% of all U.S. email recipients' email programs. - Epsilon (2009) 25% of marketers rated Subject line tests "very effective". - MarketingSherpa "2009 Email Marketing Benchmark Guide" (Oct 2008) Emails with shorter subject lines significantly outperformed emails with longer subject lines. - MailerMailer (2008)

4. Emails that had only the subject line personalized (12.4% Open Rate & 1.7% CTR) did worse than those with no personalization at all (13.5% Open Rate & 2.7% CTR). - MailerMailer (2008) Seven in 10 US Internet users said they judged these "from" and "subject" lines when deciding whether to report an email as spam. - E-Mail Sender and Provider Coalition and Ipsos (December 2007) 35 percent of email users open messages because of what's contained in the subject line. - Jupiter Research (2007)

5. An examination of nearly 2,000 subject lines from emails from 94 major online retailers that were sent during February, March and April found that 72% of them were promotional in nature. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot , "Retail Email Subject Line Study" (June 2007) Approximately 9% of emails in the sample used hybrid subject lines, those that contain both promotional and non-promotional elements. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot , "Retail Email Subject Line Study" (June 2007) More than 39% of the retailers in the study had used at least one hybrid subject line during the 3-month period. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot , "Retail Email Subject Line Study" (June 2007)

6. During the week leading up to Christmas, plus Christmas Day itself, 24% of the emails sent by the largest online retailers promoted e-gift cards, and 27% of those emails mentioned e-gift cards in their subject line. Of all the major e-retailers that sent emails during this period, 29% promoted their e-gift cards in their emails. - Email Experience Council/RetailEmail.Blogspot 69% said they make the decision to click on the "report spam" or "junk" button using the subject line, according to the ESPC. - Email Sender and Provider Coalition (2007) 20% cited discounts and 17.5% named free shipping offers as primary influencers. - Return Path (2007) (January 2007)

7. 52% of emails reviewed in a recent study used subject lines to describe the email content but gave no indication of the value recipients would get as a result of opening the messages. - Jupiter Research (2006) 35% of email subscribers open messages based on what is in the subject line. - Jupiter Research (2006) Business to Consumer emails with the brand or company name in the subject line enjoyed open rates of 29 percent on average, compared to 22 percent without branding, for 32 percent more opens. - Silverpop (2006)

8. 7 out of 10 marketers report regularly testing subject lines. - MarketingSherpa , Email Marketing Benchmark Guide (2006) 62% test copy. - MarketingSherpa , Email Marketing Benchmark Guide (2006) Link placement, personalization and the "From" line are tested by 46% of marketers. - MarketingSherpa , Email Marketing Benchmark Guide (2006) 39% test the offer. - MarketingSherpa , Email Marketing Benchmark Guide (2006) 35 percent of respondents saying they are influenced by the subject line - Jupiter Research (2006)

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