How to Write the Perfect Ecommerce Email Subject Line

4. Advanced tactics to improve your email subject lines

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is like the holy grail of Ecommerce marketing. If you are taking your existing visitors and converting more of them to purchase, you are increasing your revenue and lowering your cost per acquisition simultaneously. And you should regularly apply CRO fundamentals to your email marketing campaigns.

1. A/B testing

One of the key processes in CRO is A/B testing, or trying out two different versions of something to gather hard data on which one performs better under certain circumstances. A/B testing can be a useful strategic tool because it controls many of the variables in a process that is typically fraught with them and gives clear answers to hard questions.

The mistake most business owners make when it comes to A/B testing, however, is attempting too many tests based on small changes and expecting something dramatic to happen. Incremental tests generally require more of an investment of your resources, and they tend to affect only small changes as well. For this reason, they are probably best to use only when you are trying to track very specific changes, or if you are just getting started in email marketing and are still finding your bearings.

Once you have a solid handle on your A/B testing regimen, do not be afraid to take a big swing and see if you can knock one out of the park: you might be surprised how trying something out of the box can potentially make a considerable difference in your conversion rate. According to Neil Patel who has spent a career redefining online marketing, “You have a better chance of getting a big win from a drastic change than from a small tweak.” Whenever you do attempt a drastic change, make sure you are always measuring your results carefully so that you can make an honest assessment of the initiative. The great thing about A/B testing is that the results are always manifest; it is your job to pay attention to them and not get swayed by internal biases or other impediments. So, with your next subject line A/B test, take a gamble on two wildly different subject lines to see if you can hit a homerun.

2. Double opens

What can you do when you are experiencing consistently lackluster open rates?

One helpful strategy is to think of the testing process as if it were IT troubleshooting. When you run up against a technical difficulty you do not change around all the cables, modify dozens of software settings and install a new battery all at once. You might solve the problem, but if the same issue recurs you might not have any clue what it was that fixed it the first time. Instead you change one setting at a time until you have reached a desirable result.

If you notice that a significant portion of your recipient list is not opening your emails, you may be tempted to try a wholesale change. The next time you send something out you will have entirely new content, a fancy new format, links to new landing pages, etc. But it seems obvious that the content was not the problem the first time, since a majority of your audience did not even bother to look at it. Maybe modifying your subject line first is similar to powering your cell phone off and on when there is a glitch.

Noah Kagan, a serial entrepreneur and calculated email marketer, calls this strategy “Double Opens,” and it is a simple method that increased his open rate by 30%. For this plan, all you have to do is find the last mass email that you sent out. Simply change the subject line to something completely new and re-send the previous email to everyone on the list who did not open it the first time. You will be sending out the exact same content as before, and you will know immediately if a simple change in your subject line was all that was holding you back from connecting with thousands more prospects. The great thing is that you can utilize this strategy whenever you send out an email that earns a sub par open rate. In most cases, you do not have to worry about alienating your subscribers with duplicate content, because you can assume the people who are receiving the second iteration never saw it in the first place. But do this conservatively. In other words, do not do this with every email since there will inevitably be recipients who were away on holiday and may find it bothersome to receive the same email twice.