Email campaign mailing frequency rises dramatically during the holiday season, putting more pressure on subject lines to quickly connect with subscribers and kick off a positive and profitable interaction. Based on an analysis of subject lines and campaign performance from a selection of retail and ecommerce brands using Oracle Responsys from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, 2023, we discovered a number of insights that can help brands craft better subject lines this holiday season. Here are our top findings…
Subject Line Mentions of ‘Black Friday’ & ‘Cyber’ Monday
For more than a decade now, the two biggest selling days of the year are consistently Black Friday and Cyber Monday. These two days are so synonymous with great deals and have such strong cultural weight that brands use the words Black Friday and Cyber to promote sales as early as July, as part of Christmas in July campaigns. However, brands use those words in their subject lines most often in November and December.
According to our analysis, the results of that usage varies depending on timing. Let’s start by examining Black Friday usage, which is referred to much more than Cyber. Subject lines that used the words Black Friday performed best in terms of opens and clicks during the week leading up to Black Friday, and especially at the beginning of Black Friday week. Usage of Black Friday earlier in the month was also positive, but more muted. Using Black Friday in subject lines after the day generally produced subpar results.
Results around using Cyber were much more compressed. For example, using Cyber in subject lines during Black Friday week (or earlier) didn’t perform well. Subject lines that included Cyber did best during the weekend directly before Cyber Monday and on the day itself. Only 27% of subject lines included a Cyber reference on Cyber Monday, compared to 54% in 2022. That’s probably a missed opportunity.
Unlike during the 2022 holiday season when using Cyber in subject lines after Cyber Monday depressed performance, it performed fairly well during the days following Cyber Monday in 2023.
For comparison, the use of Holiday in subject lines led to mixed results throughout the holiday season, with no discernible reason why.
Our Recommendations
- Highlight Black Friday offers in subject lines in early November, and then back off until Black Friday week, with a particular focus on the Sunday and Monday before Black Friday.
- Concentrate your Cyber mentions on the day of and the Saturday and Sunday before.
- Consider using a sender name extension (i.e., YourBrand Cyber Monday) as an alternative or additional way to highlight your Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns.
Discounts in Subject Lines
After a 47% surge in the proportion of subject lines that included discounts in 2022 compared to 2021, last year saw only a slight 2 percentage point increase.
Highlighting %-off discounts was more than twice as popular as $-off discounts. In terms of %-off discounts, 50%-off was the most frequently mentioned in subject lines, followed by 60%-off offers.
While subject lines that didn’t feature a discount had better unique open rates than those with discounts, the latter drove better click performance. In particular, highlighting $-off offers drove significantly higher click rates than %-off.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, %-off discounts of 65% and higher generated dramatically higher click-through rates than lower offers.
While there are clearly opportunities to drive interest during the holiday season with discounts that you highlight prominently in your subject lines, keep in mind that 44% of subject lines didn’t feature a discount. Of course, that’s not to say the campaign didn’t include discounts, but it wasn’t highlighted in the subject line as a compelling reason to engage with the message.
Our Recommendations
- Test $-off vs. %-off offers to see which works best for your audience, given the price points of your products, average order value, and other factors. Keep in mind that consumers don’t always value more-valuable discounts more.
- Really big discounts get the biggest reactions from subscribers, so if you’re promoting a discount of 65% or more on a product, category, or selection of products, strongly consider featuring that in your subject line.
- While we only examined holiday subject lines, your preview text can also help drive interest in your messages, whether you’re featuring a discount or not.
‘Mystery’ Offers
The antithesis of using discounts in subject lines, mystery deals withhold the offer’s details until the subscriber clicks through.
As we see at other times of the year, mystery offers drive much higher click engagement, but see slightly lower-than-average open engagement. During last holiday season, emails that used Mystery in their subject line outperformed the average campaign’s responder rate by a massive 90%.
Our Recommendations
- Use mystery offers strategically, as overusing them diminishes their performance.
- A lackluster mystery deal can depress future engagement with these offers, so make your mystery deals worthwhile.
- Consider using mystery deals as last-minute offers or on big spend days to drive incremental revenue.
‘Early’ Messaging
Subscribers want to feel special. Giving them early access to sales or limited-supply products is a great way to make them feel that they’re among a select few. The use of the word Early in subject lines backs this up. Subject lines that included it during the 2023 holiday season outperformed the average campaign by 4% on unique open rates and 21% on unique click rates.
Our Recommendations
- If you’re giving your subscribers early access to deals or products, highlight that in your subject line.
‘Gift’ References
Perhaps one of our more surprising and counterintuitive findings from our holiday subject line research is that including Gift in subject lines depressed unique click rates for the emails by more than 20%. That was not only the case last holiday season, but during the 2022 holiday season as well.
Our Recommendations
- Consider testing alternative language to promote gift guides and other gift-oriented content.
- Consider moving Gift references from your subject line to your preview text.
Most Used Words
In addition to everything above, we also did an in-depth analysis of overall word usage trends in holiday subject lines. To see the most popular words used in our word cloud, plus a breakdown of major messaging themes, check out our Holiday Subject Line Word Cloud.
We hope these insights have inspired you to try new subject line tactics and, above all, do some more subject line A/B testing. Just be sure to avoid these A/B testing pitfalls, which include being sure to choose a victory metric that’s aligned with the goal of your campaign. For retailers, that means conversions and sales. That said, you may have to settle for email clicks if you’re doing a 10/10/80 or similar split test where you’re looking to send the winning version out to the majority of your audience the same day. Get testing and see what your audience responds to best.
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Now updated, this blog post was originally published on Oct. 6, 2023 by Tommy Hummel.