My email open rates jumped 40% after I killed my subject line A/B tests

I was running A/B tests on subject lines for 6 months and barely saw any movement. Last month I decided to stop testing entirely and just write subject lines based on what my actual customers said in support tickets. I pulled 50 recent customer emails and found 3 exact phrases they used about their biggest problems. My open rates went from 22% to 31% in two weeks. I had been overthinking it with all those split tests when the answer was right in front of me. Has anyone else had better luck ditching fancy testing and just asking customers what clicks with them?

2 comments

2 Comments

gavinw451mo ago

Is it just me or does this same thing happen in a bunch of areas of life? Like I remember trying to cook a complicated recipe with all these fancy techniques and getting worse results than just asking my grandma what she actually does in her kitchen. I see it at work too where people get so caught up in the latest tools and methods that they forget the simplest stuff is usually what actually works. Your customers basically handed you the answer on a silver platter and all you had to do was listen instead of chasing the next big testing framework.

jesse_fisher1mo ago

A buddy of mine had the exact same thing happen with his newsletter. He was obsessing over his A/B tests for months until he just started copying the exact words people used in their replies to him. He said his open rates went up almost overnight and he felt dumb for not doing it sooner.