For B2B re-engagement, a highly effective subject line is "Are you still with [Company Name]?". This personalizes the email at scale by dynamically inserting the contact's employer. It grabs attention and prompts an open to confirm or update their status, successfully re-engaging them with your content or offers.

From Nov 20th to Dec 20th, sending a personal letter-style email from a founder or executive to unengaged contacts can increase open rates by 40%. The key is changing the "from name" to a person, not the brand, and using a subject line that acknowledges their absence. This strategy works for both B2B and B2C brands.

Combine two specific audience identifiers in your subject line, like role and company attribute ("Mid-market CMOs") or interest and a pain point ("Beauty fans with sensitive skin"). This "double personalization" tactic reportedly increases B2B open rates by 24% and B2C by 29% by making the message feel hyper-relevant.

While many marketers use brackets at the beginning of email subject lines, new data from subjectline.com shows placing them at the end is boosting open rates. This tactic works by drawing the reader's eye to a key callout, and contrary to myth, it does not negatively impact deliverability or land emails in spam.

Focusing on email open rates can lead to clickbait subject lines and weak copy. Instead, orient your entire outreach strategy around getting a reply. This forces you to write more personalized, engaging content that addresses the recipient's specific pain points, leading to actual conversations, not just vanity metrics.

Prompting subscribers with simple, non-work-related questions (e.g., "What's your favorite holiday cookie?") encourages replies. This builds a conversational relationship, improves engagement signals, and positively impacts email deliverability and open rates.

The holiday season sees a massive spike in email unsubscribes. This isn't due to your marketing efforts, but because people are trying to "clean up" their inboxes for the new year. Marketers should anticipate this trend and not misinterpret it as a sign of poor campaign performance or reduce email frequency.

Shift your primary success metric from passive opens to active replies. A reply signifies a genuine two-way conversation and a much deeper level of engagement. Actively inviting responses in your emails transforms a broadcast into a powerful relationship-building tool and provides invaluable audience feedback.

Data from Subjectline.com reveals a powerful, simple tactic for email marketing. Using a "continuation pre-header" that begins with "and," "but," or "plus" creates a narrative link to the subject line, sparking curiosity and significantly boosting open rates. This is an easy-to-implement test for any campaign.