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Jon Poland says
Great stuff, Jeff. I believe the subject matter of things like “conversions” and “email open rates” is often over-looked. Many people are fixated on traffic and they have lost sight of the fact that you need to “convert” that traffic.
In regard to your email with the subject line “price doubles tonight” — I understand that the open rate for this email was low. But I’m wondering if those who did open the email converted at a high rate because they wanted the deal before the price doubled.
Jeff Johnson says
You definitely need to look at open rates and CTR together. Sometimes you’ll find a lower open rate will still have a higher CTR or a higher conversion rate. However, in this instance I believe it was an affiliate offer that we couldn’t easily track. And for most email supported launch offers we don’t bother to have them install a tracking pixel for us. PPC is s different story, however 🙂
charles terrence harper says
I guess I erroneously thought that using the word “free” would trigger Aweber’s spam filters. So I have never used “free” in my subject lines or emails. I guess I will start trying.
Steve eMailSmith says
Just make sure you won’t use it in all caps, though…
a) free, is okay
b) FREE, is wrong
Also, do not use silly fr.ee or some such.
BTW, the above would sometimes (in the email body not subject line, though) become a clickable link, because .ee is the cTLD (country Top Level Domain) of Estonia (a country in Europe)
Cheers and good luck with the test!
~Steve
Jeff Johnson says
I agree, free is not by itself much of a spam trigger. But trying to “disguise” it as f.ree or fre.ee, etc is.