Naming the prospect's ATS in the subject line: 13% to 66% opens
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsNaming the applicant tracking system a prospect already used, instead of their first name, raised the unique open rate from 13% to 66%.
AppVault, a recruitment marketing platform that sells to enterprise HR teams, ran the test, and it was published as a MarketingSherpa case study.
- Unique open rate went from 13% for the first-name subject line to 66% for the installed-tech version.
- The source reports opens only. It gives no figures for clicks, meetings or pipeline.
- No sample size or significance level was shared.
Control
The B2B email subject line was personalized with the recipient's first name.
Variant
The subject line named the applicant tracking system (ATS) installed on the prospect's career site, pulled from a field in the marketing automation system.
Why it likely won
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A first name is personal but says nothing about the reader's problem. The ATS name ties the email to a tool they work with every day.
- Prospects likely saw their own setup in the subject line and assumed the email was relevant to them.
- The ATS market has only a handful of major players, so a few versions cover most of the list.
Caveats: The result covers opens, not meetings or revenue, and no sample size is given. Open rates from that period are also less reliable now that some mail apps load emails automatically.
Who ran it
AppVault ran this test and published the results (MarketingSherpa case study). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on AppVault →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we name the software a prospect already uses in our subject line, then more prospects will open because the email will feel tied to their own setup.
- Primary metric
- Unique click rate or meetings booked per email sent
- Guardrails
- Unsubscribe and spam complaint rates
- Open rate
- Share of records with a missing or outdated tech field
- Who should test it
- B2B SaaS teams that sell into or alongside a known tool and have reliable technographic data. Don't try it if your data is stale: naming the wrong tool can quickly lead to unsubscribes.
Questions
Is first-name personalization in subject lines worth it?
It may not be enough on its own.
In this test, a first name got a 13% open rate, while naming the prospect's software got 66%.
Where does installed-tech data come from?
Technographic data can come from data vendors, site scans or your own sales research.
Store it as a field in your marketing automation system so you can merge it in.
What's the risk of tech-based personalization?
Bad data. If you name the wrong system, the email looks careless and recipients may unsubscribe.