Which words in Email Subject lines drive the best response?

Who ever complains that they don’t receive enough emails? Email overload is a reality in today’s fast-paced environment. Nearly everyone’s inbox is bombarded with email communications, all of which are competing for the recipient’s time and attention.

To filter out unnecessary messages, most people spend just a fraction of a second evaluating email subject lines. If the subject line doesn’t immediately capture their attention, they move on to the next message in their inbox. It becomes extremely clear that your subject line may be your first and only chance at enticing your recipient to open your email.

The team at Smart Insights did some research into which words seem to drive the best responses and assigned a quality score – which was derived from a combination of response metrics, time-decayed results, and external factors. It’s called the Phrasee Score™. Scores range from 1 to 100. The higher the score the more reliably a phrase drives response.

The key findings for the top 5 and bottom 5 words are as follows:

Action words
These are call-to-action phrases that are intended to elicit a specific behavior.

Sale phrases

These are phrases that relate to a specific offer, discount or sale.

Superlatives

These are nouns or verbs that elicit emotional response from email recipients.

Urgency

These are phrases that use time or stock limits as an action driver. Clearly, anything to do with Midnight doesn’t work too well.

To read the full report