Email service providers (ESP) understand this and many of them build this functionality into their systems.
I have referenced one of my favorite best practices sites, behave.org, for testing before. See some of their subject line testing results for ideas on things you can test. Marketers are seeing small and large impacts from these tests, but done well, some have seen more than double the open rates. So, what does that mean in raw numbers and potential revenue? Look at the simple example below. This spreadsheet allows you to input your own metrics and see the revenue impact possible with a subject line test. Want this spreadsheet? Request Now.
So how do you do subject line testing? As I said above, most of the large ESPs have this functionality already built in. We will use MailChimp as an example to show the process steps.
1. Create a New Campaign
2. From the drop down, pick A/B Testing as your campaign type
3. Pick your list, either an existing one or create a new one
4. Select subject line as the type of test you would like to do (here and in other ESPs you can select how many subject lines to test, however just be careful on doing too many at once unless you have a very large list since the more you split it, the more difficult to obtain valid results). MailChimp actually recommends a minimum of 5,000 per test cell
5. Select the percentage split of how many of the recipients will receive each version of the subject line. This will depend on how many subject lines you have, so for two split 50/50, for 3, 33/33/33, etc.
6. Select how long before you declare a winner. You can select hours or days. Your selection will depend on the size of your list. If your list is small, you may want to leave a longer time to allow enough results to come in to have a valid sample
7. Select the metric you are measuring. For subject line testing, it will typically be the open rate, but you could select something else if you have full funnel metrics
8. ALWAYS remember to personalize with the first name if you have it unless this is your test
9. Enter in your test subject lines, from and what metrics you want to track
10. Select and populate your email content and design
11. Test and send by following the prompts
12. Review your results and add to your ongoing learning
While this is only one walk-through in how to do a subject line test, other systems may work differently including the ability to embed a subject line test as part of normal sends. This typically works by allowing you to set 10-20% of your list to run through the test in the first wave of sending, then after reading those results, continue with the full list send based on the winning subject line.
Even if your system doesn't have robust, built in subject line testing, you can do it yourself by creating two campaigns with everything the same except the subject line. While this is a bit more work and can be a bit problematic from a sending standpoint, it still provides you the ability to test and learn how subject lines can improve your bottom line.
Today's Tips:
- Include subject line testing as a normal part of your email program
- As always, use personalization
- Read results, accumulate your learnings and continue to improve!
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