'Top 10 insights' email copy vs general copy: about -80% clicks
Commentary byLiftArchiveOur analysis, not theirsRewriting a report promo email as a list of the top 10 insights, with a matching subject line, cut clickthrough by about 80% against general copy.
MECLABS ran the test on its own MarketingSherpa campaign for the 2012 Mobile Marketing Benchmark Report, and published it on MarketingExperiments in 2013. The team's view is that the 10-item list made the email too long.
- Clickthrough rate: about -80% for the top-10 email against the general copy. This is a loss.
- A side test swapped the full-name greeting for "Hi Marketer,". The top-10 email sent with the full name beat the general email sent without it.
- The team linked that side result to the full-name list being a more engaged segment, not just to personalisation.
- Send volume, list size and confidence level: not shared.
Control
Subject line: "[Just Released] New Mobile Marketing Benchmark Report". The body used general copy about using mobile in the coming year's strategy and which mobile tactics were working.
Variant
Subject line: "[Latest Research] 10 mobile marketing insights from brand-new research". The body listed the top 10 insights from the report.
Why it likely lost
Our reading of the result, not the practitioner's claim.
- A list of 10 points turned into a long block that reads like a paragraph. The MECLABS team felt lists stop working past about five items.
- Giving away 10 insights in the email may have answered readers' curiosity, leaving less reason to click through to the report.
- The subject line and body changed together, so some of the drop could come from the subject line alone.
Caveats: The subject line and body copy changed together, so the drop can't be pinned on one of them. The test is from the 2012 to 2013 period, and send volume and confidence are not shared.
Who ran it
MECLABS ran this test and published the results (MarketingExperiments). The numbers are theirs; the summary and commentary on this page are ours.
Read the original case study on MECLABS →
How to run this test on your site
- Hypothesis
- If we tease three to five specific findings from our report in the email instead of a general description, then more readers will click because they see concrete value without getting the whole answer.
- Primary metric
- Clickthrough rate to the report landing page
- Guardrails
- Open rate
- Unsubscribe rate
- Report downloads per send
- Who should test it
- Lead-gen and B2B marketers promoting reports, guides or webinars by email. A long list probably won't help if the email already reads as text-heavy.
Questions
Do list-style emails get more clicks?
Not always. In this test a top-10 insights email got about 80% fewer clicks than general copy, likely because the list was too long.
How many bullet points should a promo email have?
There's no fixed rule, but the MECLABS team suggested lists lose impact beyond about five items.
Test a short list against your current copy.
Does using a subscriber's first name improve email clicks?
It can, but be careful reading the result.
In this test the full-name list did better, and the team thought that list was simply a more engaged segment.
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