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What Not To Say In An Email Subject
Posted By: ohallost on 8/10/2004 5:17 PM (CST) 125 Points
I send a monthly e-newsletter for our organization, as well as mini messages in between if something important comes up (like a new promo). Right now we are offering our product at 20% off if you register online, and we want to send an email about it. I'm wondering if putting "20% off" in the subject will hurt our deliverability?

And.. when it comes right down to it, how much does saying "free" hurt? And does it matter if it's in the body but not the subject? Also, is there a way to figure out when messages are blocked by spam filters? (Okay, okay... that's more than one question...) Thanks for your help!

Posted by: Pepper Blue Member Response
8/10/2004 5:45 PM (CST)
Hi Bretharding,

"20% off" should not flag a spam filter but no guarantee.

What worked last month might not work this month because the spam filters change their algorithms constantly.

The way to find out is to send a split run (2 different mailing groups) with different subject lines. Don't change anything else, just the subject line in each run.

"Free" is not a good thing to say, that is sure to get you some bounce backs, especially in the subject line.

"Complimentary" is better, more filter friendly.

Complimentary also sounds better. In most situations it doesn't cheapen the offering as much.

It is not recommended to put "Free" in the body but much worse to put it in the subject line. You could get away with some "frees" in the body, but the subject line.....I don't think that is a good idea.

Spam filter metrics - spam blocks no, total blocks yes. The problem is blocks can be from several sources: Blocked IP address, ISP spam block, server-side spam block, client-side spam block, you never really know.

Don't forget, the best thing to do is to get subsribers to add your email address to their white list, this will mitigate all the concerns you have stated above.

I hope that helps.
 
Posted by: ohallost Author Response
8/10/2004 6:04 PM (CST)
Thanks! Does anyone know of any articles that outline words/phrases to never use?

So now I guess I'm wondering are there some general benchmarks on how many messages tend to be blocked? Of the 10K emails I sent in my last mailing, with 32% opened (bad for us this month...), and almost 1000 bounces... how many can I expect to have been blocked?

Thanks again!
 
Posted by: SteveByrneBranding Member Response
8/10/2004 6:24 PM (CST)
bretharding,

here's a link that could help.

http://www.wordbiz.com/avoidspamfilters.html

"emails blocked" is related to list quality (recent real opt-in names will have fewer blocks) However, blocks or bounces or filters or ?? people are finding ways to not see your email. Some marketers are going back to snail mail for the first introductions and to capture opt-in email addresses.

good luck,

Steve
 
Posted by: Inbox_Interactive Accepted Answer
8/10/2004 7:27 PM (CST)
I'd already written up my response before reading the other replies, so apologies for any repetition (although perhaps the validation is helpful).

"20% off" should not hurt you filter-wise. There are no guarantees, of course. And even if somehow it did hurt your deliverability (which again, I doubt it will), the gains to be had from an increased open rate might offset the losses from non-deliverables.

"Free" is not necessarily the evil that many think it is, either. For example "free shipping" is sometimes forgiven, as is the term "free white paper." We have many clients that successfully send mail with the word "free" in the copy. Also, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the lift that you get from increased opens and conversions might very well offset the loss from undeliverable or trashed mail.

As far as determining if your message is being blocked by SPAM filters, you can do a couple of things. First, if this is really important to you, you should set up accounts with the major ISPs and e-mail services and see where your mail ends up. Many of these are free. Sending your mail to all of these accounts should be a part of your testing process prior to actual delivery. You might also have a version of Outlook in use to see if your mail is being routed to Microsoft's junk folder.

You should also be looking at your reports to see if you have any domains for which you never detect an open. For example, if you see that @aol.com is 10% of your list and you're getting zero opens (or very, very few), you can assume that your mail is not being delivered. Look at this for the major ISPs. Look at this also for corporate domains and see if your open rate is zero. For example, we had a client who for the longest time never got an open from @etrade.com until we contacted the e-mail administrator and got things worked out on that end.

As you can see, this is something that you need to look into after each deployment and stay on top of before you find out that half your mail is not even getting delivered. Hope this helps.

Paul
 
Posted by: J McCay/Avenue East* Member Response
8/11/2004 7:21 AM (CST)
Hi there,

Recently MarketingSherpa.com began selling an e-book on spam filters that's quite helpful. (It contains a list of terms that get your e-mails sent straight to the trash bin.)

We have had trouble in the past using words like "Free" or "% off" for subject lines. (You can use free once or twice in the body of an e-mail, but in the subject line it tends to be spam-filtered.)

However, as the previous poster noted, you should do a test run to see what works based on your particular combination of words -- same goes for every e-mail that you ever send out, though. Without it, you'll never know how much you could otherwise achieve.

I've worked on campaigns before where we could have made hundreds of thousands of extra dollars for our clients, if only they would have allowed us to use the subject line that pulled best in the test run instead of going with the "safe one" that was approved by all involved. (But this isn't the time or place for complaining about approval by committee, is it?) :)

Cheers,
Jennifer
 
Posted by: ohallost Author Response
8/11/2004 9:56 AM (CST)
Thank you all so very much for your helpful suggestions! I'll do some test runs as you suggest, and hopefully cancel out any blocked emails with an increased open rate. Now if I could just explain this to management...

Cheers!
Stacey.
 
Posted by: acorry* Member Response
5/20/2008 11:41 AM (CST)
Would including a number of clients/users in the subject line trigger the spam filter? How about use of the word "leading?"
 


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