Subject Lines and Sending Details

Subject Lines

Your email subject line is very important because it serves as a first impression for your recipients. The subject line often determines whether or not your audience will open your email. Some subject line best practices include:

  • Make your subject lines clear and concise, starting with the most important information.
  • Do not use deceptive subject lines.
  • If you are sending a recurring newsletter, include the name of that newsletter in the subject line.
  • Adding personalizations (Recipient Names) to your subject lines is an easy way to help engage your audience. 
    • Personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened
    • But, keep in mind that this will lose effectiveness if used too frequently
  • Create a sense of urgency in your subject lines to get your readers to take action.
  • Recommended length: 7 words/41 characters

Avoid keywords that may set off spam triggers.

Eg.

Preheader/Preview Text

Preheader, or ‘Preview’ text accompanies the subject line in the recipient's inbox. Preview text may not be shown in all inboxes but is an important component for those that do display it.

Screenshot of email preheader text

Preview text is as important as the subject line in helping determine if the recipient will open, and the best length is 5-8 words. Beyond that, your preview text may get cut off. If left blank, the preview text will auto-populate with the first few lines of text in the email.

Sender information(name and email) & reply info (if different from sender)

Sender information can be as important as the subject line in influencing if the subscriber will open the email. It’s important to use accurate information to not mislead your subscriber.

Send emails from an address ending in the “ualberta.ca” domain. While this also helps with branding and reputation, these addresses are authenticated to send from Campaign Monitor.

Be sure to include a reply email. This should also be a “alberta.ca” domain email address but can be different from the sender's email address. ‘Do-not-reply’ addresses should be avoided. Replies help to improve our sender score and engage with the subscribers, so leaving them with the inability to respond cuts that connection short.

Send Time

Decide on a send time that will optimize your readers’ engagement. Take into account when your audience is looking in their inbox, For most, it will be Monday through Friday with a few peak hours for sending. The best times to send email are between 9 - 11 a.m. and 1 - 4 p.m. Sending emails outside of this time may result in lower engagement.

It’s also important to be mindful of volume. People are overloaded with emails, so do not send too many emails all within a short period.