When Is Too Long Too Much
Jul 29 2009
We have seen reports from Dela Quist and his team about response rates from long and short subject lines. I personally don’t think that over 75 characters is better as I have not had that experience with trying overly verbose subject lines. Blog posts and sentences in this blog are another thing….
But this past week I saw this email enter my inbox and could not believe that someone actually tried to make a subject line this long. I could not read it, follow it nor understand it. I mean really can you with this example? I have a firm belief that concise copy in emails and subject lines in emails that are targeted, focused on a result, and driven to the right landing pages work. When you throw the whole kitchen sink at a subject line my opinion that no one knows what to do with it and the most likely path it has in store for it is the trash can.
What do you think about the best practice from performance you have had with email subject line testing?
- Posted by Dylan Boyd
- @dtboyd
- at 7:15 AM
Published in Behavioral Marketing, Best Practices, Conversion, E-Mail Marketing, Email News, eMail Marketing Optimization
(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
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July 29th, 2009 at 7:38 am
I think a little length is ok, but this is a little over the top.
I certainly have not tested subject lines this long, but it would be interested to see a test of this length vs. something really small.
I think it also boils down to the subscribers and what they are use to seeing from you.
I am a firm believer that simplicity wins in the already busy and clouded society. I am a straight to the point person and determine my open on what they are saying in the subject line. If I saw this…it would overwhelm me and it would be deleted by the 5th word.
Just my 2 cents.
July 29th, 2009 at 8:53 am
Industry best practice usually isn’t – best practice can only be defined through testing. David Ogilvy didn’t favour long copy. He favoured copy that worked and through testing he found that longer copy worked. Here is an interesting article about translating Ogilvy’s teachings into digital.
July 30th, 2009 at 12:50 am
[...] Betreffzeile: Dylan Boyd hat die – für mich – längste Subjectline entdeckt. Ob sowas funktioniert…? http://theemailwars.com/2009/07/29/when-is-too-long-too-much/ [...]
July 31st, 2009 at 10:13 am
Must be auto-generated which is never a good thing
August 1st, 2009 at 9:14 pm
[...] see the new post from theemailwars.com [...]
August 1st, 2009 at 9:17 pm
the subject line must be short and targeted. maybe i need to say “dude,check your subject before u click the send button”
August 4th, 2009 at 5:47 am
In my experiences, subject line length only matters when the recipient does not recognize the sender.
We have tested short and long, personalize and not personalized and length has never been a deciding factor.
But what has is what is written in the first 3 words…
August 4th, 2009 at 6:14 am
Personally, I’m not a big fan of character counting.
The reality is that you can write a short crappy subject line or a long one. I think WHAT you’re saying is more important than in how many characters.
That being said, I follow these basic rules: Keep it simple (yet compelling!) with the most important information toward the beginning of the subject line.