Best Practice: Subject Lines

As one of the most important parts of your email, a concise and interesting subject line can:

  • Inform recipients of what your email is about before opening.

  • Improve the campaign's response rates.

A well-written subject line will typically:

  • Be between 20 and 70 characters in length.

  • Easily explain the email content.

  • Avoid using words that could be perceived as spam, e.g. special offers or words in all capitals.

    Tip: if Adestra detects words that are often associated with spam, you will get a warning note.

    Screen capture showing an example of a subject line with possible spam phrases and the warning that displays to alert you of the possible spam phrases.

    The campaign test and launch process will also highlight any content that may trigger common spam filters.

  • Include personalisation.

Adding personalisation

Personalising your subject lines, such as including a recipient's name, may improve open rates in comparison to generic subject lines, which could in turn lead to increased clicks and conversions.

Tip: when adding personalisation you should send yourself a test to make sure all fields are correct and the email sends as you expect.

Adestra provides you with an easy way to use your data to personalise your subject line. On the options step of your campaign:

  • Press the personalisation button next to the subject line box to open the field selector.

  • Select a field from the relevant core or data tables.

    Note: if you add the personalisation to the subject line after selecting a mailing list, the field selector will only display fields from the same core table as the list.
    Caution: selecting a field from one core table and later selecting a mailing list with a different core table could lead to the field being omitted at launch.

  • Add a combination of personalisation and text within your subject line.

Tip: you should also consider setting a default value for your personalisation, using conditional content in the source editor, in case a personalisation field is empty.

Example: a subject line with title, surname, and subscription type personalisation.

$AMF_FIELD_TITLE$ $AMF_FIELD_SURNAME$ your $AMF_FIELD_SUBSCRIPTION_TYPE$ subscription expires in 3 days

This would then appear in the recipient’s inbox as:

Miss Mayall, your Newsletter subscription expires in 3 days