A client told me my email subject lines sounded like spam, so I rewrote all 50 of them

Last month a small e-commerce client sent me a screen recording of their inbox with my emails next to actual spam. They said 'these all feel like you're selling something before you even help me.' I had been using words like 'exclusive' and 'limited time' in every subject line. After I cut that out and made them more conversational, their open rate went up 12% in two weeks. Has anyone else had a client call them out on something that felt obvious after?

2 comments

2 Comments

anna_hill5d ago

Hang on, isn't this just a case of correlation not causation? Open rates can go up for a dozen different reasons that have nothing to do with word choice. The client probably changed their sending time or day of week too. Plus sounding like spam actually works for a lot of industries. Those "limited time" and "exclusive" words have been tested to death and they still drive clicks for plenty of businesses. Your 12% bump could just be random noise or a lucky week. If the client hadn't complained, your old subject lines might have performed fine forever.

blair_davis3d ago

12% bump over one week and I'm out here acting like I cracked the code, meanwhile my last A/B test showed that "Hey [first name]" beat "Exclusive offer" by a solid 0.4% which is basically a coin flip. You're right that time of day probably had more to do with it, I switched to 9am Tuesdays that same week and forgot to mention it. Honestly my whole career is just me guessing what sounds less annoying to people who hate email, and then blaming the algorithm when it flops.