TIL changing my email subject lines by just one word doubled my open rate

I run a small local bakery in Portland and nobody was opening my weekly newsletter. I switched from saying 'Sale' to 'Secret' in the subject line and my open rate jumped from 14% to 33% overnight. Has anyone else found a tiny word swap that made a huge difference in their campaigns?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_drew4d ago

I dunno, I feel like that sort of jump might be more about your audience getting tired of the same old thing rather than the word itself... if you ran a different test next week with 'Secret' again, it probably wouldn't hit 33% again because people catch on fast. I've seen similar spikes in my own stuff that leveled right back down after a couple sends, so I'm a little skeptical it's a permanent fix.

sean_green444d ago

Yeah but you're mixing up click fatigue with language testing. Mark's test was comparing two words at the same time, not running the same one twice in a row.

mark_ward4d ago

Man that's a killer result right there. Same thing happened to me when I switched from 'New' to 'Inside' for my newsletter. Open rate jumped like crazy. People just get numb to the obvious sales words. Something about a word that sounds like you're letting them in on a little secret makes them click way more. It's wild how one tiny swap can change everything. Makes you wonder what other little words are costing you without you even knowing it.