# Naming the prospect's ATS in the subject line: 13% to 66% opens

- Outcome: Won
- Page type: Email (SaaS)
- Elements: Subject line, Personalization
- Date shared: 2016
- Test run by: [AppVault](https://liftarchive.com/practitioners/appvault/)
- Commentary by: LiftArchive (our analysis, not theirs)
- Original source: https://marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/appvault-email-landing-page-testing
- Page: https://liftarchive.com/test/appvault-subject-line-installed-ats/

Naming 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.

## Result

**13% to 66% opens**

- 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)

- 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.

## How to run this test

- 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
- Guardrail: Unsubscribe and spam complaint rates
- Guardrail: Open rate
- Guardrail: Share of records with a missing or outdated tech field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.

---

Credit: AppVault ran this test and owns the result. Summary and commentary by LiftArchive (https://liftarchive.com/test/appvault-subject-line-installed-ats/).
Usage: Free to use, quote and build on, with credit and a link: name the practitioner or organization that ran the test and link to its LiftArchive page. The results belong to the practitioners who ran and shared them; the summaries and commentary are LiftArchive's.