Often even a small change can have a huge impact on your conversion. This time we tested adding a subject line in the body of an email.

What we tested
We tested to see if adding a subject line to the body of an email will make any difference”. So we did. We used the same subject line from the subject line field, made it the very first thing in the body and made it bold.

The test background
We ran this test for 2 weeks on 3 different websites to make sure the result was not just a one off success, but a persistent result that could then be applied and relied on. We tagged all urls in emails using Google url builder tool so we could recognize emails with subject lines in the body from those without the subject line in the body, in Google Analytics. After the 2 week period of sending the weekly email campaign, we collected and analysed the data.

Test result
Combined revenue was increased by 37.20% and visits by 22.8%.  In the table below you can see the data for each site. This small addition to the emails increased visits and revenue on all 3 sites during the 2 week testing period.

RE: – yes = had subject line included in the body          

RE: – no = didn’t have subject line included in the body

Hypothesis
-  If your email subscribers can see the offer you promised them in the subject line reinforced again in the body of the email, you get rewarded by more clicks, which subsequently lead to more orders and revenue.

Finally, here is an example from CafePress email how this is be applied to html emails with images.