New Study Shows 53% of All Subject Lines Are Broken!

Are your subject lines broken? Even if you think you don't have a problem, you need to keep reading. A new study released by Pivotal Veracity shows that 53% of all subject lines are broken, meaning they'll be improperly rendered in your recipient's email reader! Fortunately, the study also gave us tips to make sure we avoid this pitfall.

For a test conducted with 18 major ISPs, the results are alarming. Basically, the problem boils down to a simple error -- copying & pasting subject lines from a word processing program like Microsoft Word into your email program. MSWord and others like it show ASCII type characters when you're viewing your document, but they aren't ASCII encoded. Copy and pasting these non-ASCII encoded characters into your subject lines can render disastrous results of gobbledegook. And, we all know what that means. Not only might you lose a sale, you might even get reported as a SPAMMER.

Three simple solutions:

1. Don't copy & paste. Manually type your subject lines into your email program. This will help ensure your emails are deliverable and readable.

2. Use an ASCII text editor. If you're writing in English, and the copy you use only contains characters in the ASCII set, write your subject lines and emails in an ASCII editor.

3. Test, Test, Test! Be sure to test the emails you send in more than one email reader. Open an account with every major email receiver (Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, Gmail, Excite, etc.), and send a test email to your account.

Download Pivotal Veracity's full report, including even more tips for ensuring subject readability, here.