Content Marketing

3 Ways to Test AI Email Subject Lines to Improve Open Rates

Subject lines are crucial to improving email engagement. Discover three ways that you can use AI to improve, craft, and generate excellent subject lines and boost open rates.

Subject lines are the make-or-break aspect of any email in a content marketing campaign. After all, it doesn’t matter how great the content of your email is if people aren’t opening it!

Discover three ways to use generative AI to improve, craft, and generate excellent subject lines and improve your open rates.

Key Takeaways

  • A/B testing with AI: Generative AI can create multiple subject line variations to help you identify the best ones for your audience. 
  • Use generative AI for subject line brainstorming: AI can help brainstorm new subject line ideas for specific email messages.
  • Generate subject lines with our Email Generator: Generative AI tools like our Email Generator are excellent for crafting high-quality email content.
  • Always fine-tune the output: As with any generative AI output, always tweak and edit it to ensure it is tailored to your audience.

Subject Lines and Why They’re So Important

The importance of a good subject line cannot be understated. Many email marketers spend hours crafting incredible body copy and then quickly draft a subject line to match. 

However, the very best in the business flip this process on its head. Instead, they spend more time on subject line creation, as without a great subject line, readers won’t open emails, in which case the body content won’t have a chance to be seen.

A great subject line can entice the reader to open a message, help them understand what content to expect inside, and motivate them to respond to a call to action.

A poor subject line will lead to fewer people opening emails, a lack of engagement, and the risk that emails may begin to appear in readers’ spam inboxes.

3 Ways to Use AI to Improve Subject Lines and Open Rates

Now, let’s review how AI can improve email subject lines to increase open rates.

A/B testing 

Firstly, generative AI can be an excellent tool for A/B testing, helping brainstorm different subject line variations to test.

By conducting A/B testing, you can check which subject line best resonates with a small part of your audience before sending the best subject line to the remaining audience.

Let’s say, for example, you run an e-commerce clothing brand, and you are about to offer a 48-hour 20% discount. You want to ensure as many people as possible interact with the sale, so you need to test a range of subject lines to see what is most successful.

Here’s an example prompt: “I run an ecommerce clothing brand, and we are about to run a 48-hour 20% off discount. We want to ensure as many people as possible interact with the sale, so we need to test a range of subject lines to see what is most successful. Please provide 3 examples of urgency subject lines, 3 examples of curiosity subject lines, 3 examples of friendly subject lines, and 3 examples of quirky subject lines”

Immediately, you have a variety of subject lines to pick from and further optimize, testing which tone of voice best resonates with your audience.

Brainstorming

AI tools can also be excellent for brainstorming new subject line ideas based on the message you are trying to convey to your audience.

Let’s use the e-commerce sale example once more.

Here’s an example prompt: “I run an ecommerce clothing brand, and we are about to run a 48-hour 20% off discount. We want to ensure as many people as possible interact with the sale. From the top studies and articles on this subject, what are some of the most important aspects that I need to include in my email subject lines?”

From there, you can continue to customize the email subject lines so they reflect the brand voice and tone.

Generating subject lines (and email content)

Lastly, generative AI can be an excellent tool for generating subject lines and even the email’s body copy. The Originality.ai Email Generator, for example, is a great tool for this, as it asks for plenty of detail before getting a response, such as purpose, recipients, and tone. This ensures the results are tailored specifically to your needs.

Here’s an example of how it works:

The prompt:

Email purpose: I run an ecommerce clothing brand, and we are about to run a 48-hour 20% off discount. We want to ensure as many people as possible interact with the sale.

Recipient information: 18-24-year-olds who have purchased from our brand before or are leads that have opted into marketing but never purchased

Tone: Informative

The results:

Just like that, we have a detailed email with a great, eye-catching subject line. We can then copy the information or fine-tune it even further using the button at the bottom right.

Final Thoughts on Generative AI for Email Subject Lines

Generative AI can be an incredibly effective tool for creating subject lines and even emails. However, it’s important to note that using generative AI for email content creation still has some of the same issues as AI article creation, so it’s important to take the time necessary to tweak and personalize the content.

Interested in learning more ways to incorporate AI into your workflow while maintaining a unique perspective? Check out our guides on AI and copywriting, creating content briefs with ChatGPT, and AI for research.

FAQs About AI Email Subject Lines

How can AI improve email subject lines?

Generative AI can improve email subject lines in a number of ways, including A/B testing, predicting results, brainstorming, and generating subject lines.

What tools are available for AI email subject line generation?

There are several AI tools available for subject line generation, including the Originality.ai Email Generator and Originality.ai Subject Line Generator, which allow you to draft clear and concise emails.

Is it easy to test AI-generated email subject lines?

Testing AI-generated email subject lines is straightforward with tools like Originality.ai which makes the process efficient and user-friendly.

Graeme

My name is Graeme, a passionate writer with a strong Content Marketing background. Over the last seven years, I have developed an extensive portfolio of SEO Content writing, helping various brands improve their organic traffic, customer experience, and, ultimately, profits!

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