email subject lines to avoid

When a company is marketing with email, they should try to avoid certain email marketing subject lines under all circumstances. The reason to avoid these subject line words and phrases is because they will often trigger email SPAM filters and your message can be sent to the SPAM folder even though it is very legitimate in nature.

In my opinion, the subject line is always the most important part of your email marketing message. The reason is because many people are very busy these days and will judge if an email is “open worthy” by the subject line. If it looks interesting they will go ahead and open it but if it looks spammy, they will delete it or worst case, they will report it as spam which can impact your long term delivery rates as it can also influence your sender reputation.

If you know the IP that you will be sending emails from, Return Path has a great service called Sender Score to check the reputation of the IP. While individual ISPs may have their own algorithm to determine if an email should be considered SPAM, many look at sender reputation to decide if to accept emails originating at that IP or to block them completely. Always make sure to carry good reputation.

A good subject line will act like a teaser and provide more information on the benefits the reader will get by opening the email. The most dreadful subject lines will try to sell you something like that sales person we all love to hate.

Here are some of the words and phrases that I believe will harm your email marketing campaigns if used in the subject lines.

100% free - (No such thing as free and SPAM filters look out for the word free)

50% off - (Hard sell which spam filters look out for)

Act now – (Another hard sell that tries to get readers to use their impulse and act on something. This doesn’t provide any value or information to the reader on what the email is about.)

All words that relate to sex or pornography and cures or medication are considered SPAM.

Amazing – (By itself it says nothing to the user. Sounds like a sales pitch and considered SPAM by many filters.)

Anything that looks like you are YELLING – (Using all capital letters in the subject line is a no no)

Apply now – (Again this type of subject line sounds and acts like a hard sell to entice readers to use their emotions and buy something.)

As seen on Oprah – (Anything with Oprah is very often seen as SPAM because false email messages were sent so many times using her name.)

As seen on TV – (Anything with”as seen on TV” is again considered SPAM for the simple fact that spammers tried to use this in the past to send email messages and take advantage of people.)

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