Details
There are many variables when it comes to email subject lines; length & number of words, personalisation options, whether or not to use an emoji (and if so, which one 🤔), The Type Of Capitalisation To Use ...just to name a few! However, thanks to our A/B testing functionality, you can take away the ambiguity and let your contacts be the judge.
This tool, built right into the email send process, allows you to automatically test two subject lines against one another using a small sample of contacts on your desired list(s). The winning subject (determined by which email subject resulted in a higher open rate), will then be used for the remaining contacts on your list(s). This is done in order to ascertain which variation will likely be engaged by your customers.
Aside from the two subject lines, our platform also lets you specify the sample size to use and how long to wait before determining a winner and completing the send. This way the majority of your list gets the best performing subject line, and the best part is - it's all completely automated once you hit the send button!
How to Guide
Setup Your A/B Test
- Open an email and navigate to the Send screen (learn more about how to Send an Email to Your Contacts).
- On the Subject panel, select the A/B Test option.
- Enter your two different subject lines into the fields provided. You can also personalise your subject lines by adding wildcards, such as the recipients first name, by clicking the
Personalised email subject lines generate an average of 50% higher open rates.
in the relevant subject line) - Now select the Test Size to use. That is, the percentage of contacts to use for testing purposes. Half of these contacts will get an email with Subject A, the other half with Subject B.
- You can now send or schedule the email as per normal.
Viewing Test Results
Once you have sent your message you can choose to go directly to the report where you can monitor the progress of your A/B test. If at any point you wish to end the test early, select the winner and send the rest of your messages now, you can do so by selecting the Manual Selection option and choosing the winning subject line.
Further Reading
During an A/B Test, the test will run with contacts taken from a random selection of contacts within the list that you are sending to.
If you have chosen to send to multiple lists for an A/B Test send, then the random selection of contacts will be roughly proportionate to the size of the list chosen. For example, if your email send is going to two lists (one with 1,000 contacts & the other with 10,000 contacts), then a smaller percentage of contacts will be used to take part in the test from the smaller list, than would be used from the larger list - as it is proportional to the list size.
CoSchedule have a great Subject Line Testing tool that may be of interest. You can find it at https://coschedule.com/email-subject-line-tester