What Is a Good Cold Email Subject Line? Tips & Examples

Dan Mowinski

Nov 8, 2024

14 minutes read

Ask fifty-three sales reps what a good cold email subject line looks like, and you’ll get fifty-three different responses. Maybe fifty-two if you’re lucky. 

In the world of cold email, one simple truth reigns supreme. The only way to identify what’s “good” for your recipients is to test. And test some more. 

The tips in this post are nothing more than a foundation—a solid foundation—to begin your own A/B and multivariate testing. Once you do that, you’ll identify subject lines that fit perfectly with your audience. 

Writing a subject line that your prospects will click is hard. Research shows that 33% of people open emails with catchy subject lines. But it’s a tightrope walk. A whopping 69% of recipients also use subject lines to decide which emails they banish to the spam folder. 

So, let’s look at how to write subject lines that elude the spam folder, encourage clicks, and act as a starting point for testing. 

What Makes a Good Cold Email Subject Line?

Inspiring busy professionals to click your emails over the 100s clogging their inboxes takes effort. But there’s no intuition or Lionel Messi-like natural talent involved. It’s a case of following the well-trodden path of great cold email marketers.

Don’t worry if you’re thinking, “I don’t have the time to craft hundreds—even thousands—of personalized subject lines!” AI has changed the way these principles are implemented, and platforms like Artisan can create thousands of carefully tailored subject lines on autopilot. 

Here are highly effective copywriting techniques that top marketers use to increase their cold email open rates.

Personalize the Subject Line

Can you remember the last time you received one of those “Dear Customer” emails? Probably not, right? And that’s the point. They’re generic and forgettable. 

Your cold email subject lines work in the same way. Impersonal terms like “Senior Director” or “Your Company” are ignored much more than personalized ones. Personalized emails have a .

Using the recipient's name or company name catches their attention in much the same way as saying their name in person.

Here are some examples;

• 

  Hi, [first name] 

  
  
• 

  Quick [your offering] idea for [company name] 

  
  
• 

  Free this week, [first name]?

  
  
• 

  [company name]  + [your company name] 

  
  
• 

  [first name], are you open to connecting?

  
  
• 

  [name of connection] suggested I reach out to you

  
  
• 

  Is [company name] looking for [your solution]

  
  

Segmentation—grouping prospects by demographic, psychographic, and technographic characteristics—can also help you hook your recipient’s attention. Segmentation allows you to create subject lines that speak to specific pain points if you allude to your offer.

Make it Perfectly Clear

Good writing is clear writing. Your recipients are far too busy to spend their time deciphering subject lines. 

As Alex Berman wrote in The Cold Email Manifesto, “To really thrive, for each cold email, you need a specific offer and a specific customer.”

Imagine you receive an email titled “Meeting request for a proposal next week?” Pretty confusing, right? Is the sender asking for a meeting to send a proposal, or would they like to meet to discuss a proposal next week?

Here’s a more exact version: “Are you free next week to discuss a proposal?”

Here are a few tips for making confusing subject lines clickable:

• 

  Use numbers rather than vague words like “some,” “many, ”or “tonnes.”

  
  
• 

  Read the subject line out loud. Does it make sense?

  
  
• 

  Replace filler words like “of” and “for” with active verbs like “discover.”

  
  
• 

  Limit jargon and only use acronyms that recipients will understand easily.

  
  

These tactics make life easier for readers. Emails that are understood quickly are much more likely to get clicked. 

Make it Relevant

Would you be interested in how florists can earn more money if you worked in construction? Almost certainly not, right? 

Relevance sparks interest. You connect with prospects by referencing things that matter to them. You can mention someone they know, demonstrate a deep understanding of their goals and challenges, or express a mutual interest.

Ask the following questions about your recipients when crafting your subject lines:

• 

  Who are they?

  
  
• 

  What do they worry about?

  
  
• 

  What do they wish worked better?

  
  
• 

  What are their goals?

  
  
• 

  What interests them?

  
  
• 

  Which KPIs do they track?

  
  

Some examples of places you can discover the answers to these questions are LinkedIn profiles, reviews of competitors, blog posts, and YouTube videos. Using an AI sales assistant is one of the easiest ways to collect this data at scale. 

Once you understand your recipients’ day-to-day concerns, you can join the conversation in their heads, making your emails hyper-relevant. 

Keep it Brief

Your recipients are busy people with overflowing inboxes. Your subject line should be clear, concise, and state precisely what its purpose is. 

Short subject lines are also mobile-friendly, which is important given the fact that 41% of emails are opened on mobile devices. If your subject line is too long to display on a mobile, it will be cut down. The extra letters will be replaced by an ellipsis, leaving your email with an incomplete and unclear offer.

Generally, subject lines of 30 to 45 characters work best. But determining the best length for your prospects is key. A/B test different lengths to generate insights into the most effective subject line lengths for your target audience. 

Creating Curiosity and Urgency

Curiosity and urgency are among the most potent emotions you can evoke if you want people to act. 

Curiosity is about leaving out details. Questions and incomplete data create an information gap that makes readers want to know more. 

Urgency is about loss aversion and time limits. If your recipient feels they might miss out if they don’t click, your email becomes a priority. This is FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).According to research by Eventbrite, 69% of millennials experience FOMO. And these millennials occupy many managerial and executive positions. 

Here are some tips for subtly sparking interest:

• 

  Try humor, but make sure the joke lands. 

  
  
• 

  Find a trending subject that recipients deeply care about and offer a new insight.

  
  
• 

  Add a time-sensitive offer. 

  
  
• 

  Mention the number of spots left for your offer. 

  
  

While inspiring interest and urgency is a great tactic, ensure it’s genuine. If your subject line is enticing but untrue, you’ll lose credibility.  

Emphasizing the Value Proposition

If I had started this blog post with a sentence like “I’m a great writer who has written for many companies, and I’m going to talk a lot about myself,” would you still be reading? 

Like any other type of marketing content, a good cold email subject line should speak directly to the prospect. It should answer the millennia-old question of “What’s in it for me?” 

Clearly show how prospects will benefit from your product or service by highlighting what you offer and why it’s valuable. 

Here are some examples that explain what the recipient will gain from opening your email:

• 

  [first name], still struggling with [pain point]?

  
  
• 

  Offer for [company name]?

  
  
• 

  Interested in increasing your [relevant metric]?

  
  
• 

  Proposal for [first name]

  
  
• 

  Solution for [pain point]
  

  
  

Best Cold Email Subject Lines That Get Opened

Thinking up good subject lines is tough, even when you’re armed with a handy list of the best practices. That’s why we’ve written 17 subject line templates—based on what’s worked for us at Artisan—that inspire recipients to click.

Using cold email templates makes scaling your marketing strategy easier. It also ensures you’re sending effective cold email subject lines that drive lead generation and primes prospects for the later stages of your sales funnel. 

Here are some attention-stealing cold email subject lines:

1. [First Name], quick question about [Company Name]

This subject line is pure personalization and a go-to for Artisan’s AI SDR Ava, who can easily access personal lead names and company names. Using the prospect’s name and company name shows you know exactly who you’re talking to. It also emphasizes that your message will be brief and creates an information gap the reader must open to fill. 

2. [First Name], Quick Tip to Improve Your [Metric]

This personalized subject line explains how you’ll benefit the reader. Pick a metric the recipient urgently wants to improve, and be sure you can follow up on your promises. Providing value is a form of ethical marketing, and ethical companies outperform comparable large-cap companies by 13.6%.

3. Can we help you with [Pain Point]?

This subject line offers assistance for prospects' most challenging pain points. In one simple question, it tells people what your business does and that you’re ready to help. Studies show that subject lines containing questions receive 9% more opens. 

4. Exclusive Offer for [Company Name]

Combining personalization and exclusivity is powerful. But only use this tactic if it’s true. Your reputation might take a hit if every business receives your so-called exclusive offer. Instead, segment recipients into those who you want to treat and those you don’t. 

5. [Recipient’s Company] x [Sender’s Company]

When used in a subject line, “x” stands for “and.” It suggests a potential collaboration. It’s become more common in recent years and builds curiosity. It raises the question, “What kind of collaboration?” in the mind of the recipient. We’ve found this subject line to be successful because Artisan will immediately create a benefit-focused, personalized opening for the main body of the email. 

6. How to Reduce [Problem] by [Percentage]

Who wouldn’t want their problems minimized? This subject line targets a problem challenging your recipients and offers a solution. It’s best to use precise numbers like “37%” rather than round numbers like “10%” because they command more attention. 

7. How to Overcome [Specific Pain Point] at [Company Name]

This highly personalized subject line is clear and relevant. It relies on a nuanced understanding of the recipient’s pain points and offers a direct, practical solution. 

8. Request for a Quick Call to Discuss [Topic]

Artisan creates subject lines like this by identifying topics that matter to leads through social media analysis. 

People love talking about the subjects that matter to them. Identify something you and your recipient have in common by searching their LinkedIn page or interviews.

Make sure it’s a subject you have expertise in and can hold an engaging conversation about—otherwise, it could backfire. Remember to avoid upsetting or controversial topics. 

9. Discover the Secret to Better [Outcome]

“Secret” is a curiosity-sparking word. Pairing it with the active verb “Discover” inspires the reader to click to obtain the insider knowledge hidden in the body of your email. It creates an information gap that the recipient wants to fill. This subject line is most effective when you pick an outcome that is very important to your reader. 

10. Are You Making These [Common Mistakes] in [Field]?

Artisan often creates subject lines like this by analyzing lead behavior and identifying industry-specific pain points. Few things are worse than not knowing you’re making obvious mistakes. Helping people save face is the ultimate value proposition. Who can resist making sure they aren’t messing up? As Forbes puts it, FOMU (Fear of Messing Up) is the new FOMO. 

11. Don’t Miss Out: [Event/Offer] Ends Soon

FOMO still works. Using “Miss Out” and “Ends Soon” makes the reader feel like it’s now or never. Suggesting there’s limited time to acquire something valuable convinces prospects to act immediately. Make sure the offer is genuine and really ending soon. And avoid clickbait offers that promise too much (no promises of “95% off”). 

12. Only a Few Spots Left for [Exclusive Event]

This subject line works like a countdown. It’s best for when you’re in the last days of promoting an event. It evokes both a sense of urgency and scarcity, a powerful combination for generating clicks or responses. 

13. Achieve [Desired Result] in Just [Time Frame]

Promising fast results has worked since time immemorial. And keeping the offer relevant taps into your recipient’s desire for success and provides a ready-made solution to a problem they are trying to fix.

14. Potential Collaboration for [Recipient’s Company] – Interested?

This subject line is an invitation to work collaboratively towards a specific goal. It’s effective because it positions you as a partner rather than someone asking for something or pushing for a sale. It also gives the reader autonomy, allowing them to say yes on their own terms. 

15. Quick Follow-Up on Our Last Message

We like this one because it references previous messages in email or on social—activity that Artisan’s AI is able to recognize. This short subject line tells the reader that your message won’t take too long and that you’ve spoken before. Follow-up emails are an important part of an outbound campaign and can increase your overall response rate by nearly 50%. 

16. Referral from [Mutual Connection’s Name] – Let’s Connect

Let’s face it, we’re suspicious of strangers. Highlighting a referral is an effective way of proving to someone on your email list that you’re more than just another salesperson. It gives you borrowed trust from the referrer, making your cold sales email warmer, which is likely to increase response rates.

17. [Mutual Connection’s Name] Suggested We Connect

This may be the most powerful cold email subject line example. It suggests that someone the recipient knows linked you both. Citing a mutual connection is an excellent form of social proof because it shows that someone they trust values you.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in a Cold Email Subject Line

You have a checklist of the components to include and templates to act as a structure. You’ve got almost everything you need to get your recipients reading and clicking through or responding to learn more about your product or service. All you need now is a list of what not to include.

Not Using AI to Share the Load

Much like writing personalized subject lines, checking every email in a large outbound campaign is nigh on impossible. An outbound AI platform like Artisan can handle the process of quality assurance and ensure compliance with best practices. 

AI tools will automatically review emails for generic personalization, clickbait, spam words, excessive use of punctuation, and more. In addition, it can handle all aspects of A/B testing, which is arguably the most important part of running a campaign. 

Being Too Generic

Short subject lines make good impressions. The challenge is saying something interesting and unique in a few words. If you send a super generic “Quick Question,” “Meeting Request,” or “Can we connect?” the most likely reaction is a yawn. 

Here are a few tips that help you keep your subject lines engaging:

• 

  Personalize the message.

  
  
• 

  Replace dull verbs with active, interesting ones.

  
  
• 

  Emphasize your connection with the recipient.

  
  
• 

  Ask yourself if you would click the title you just wrote. 

  
  

Always ensure you’re offering the client something they want and using either their name or the company name. 

Using Clickbait

Remember 2013, when Buzzfeed-style titles like “Boost Sales by 3000% with this INSANE trick” seemed to be everywhere? Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you look at it—people are a lot more resistant to clickbait nowadays. 

While overpromising may spark interest for a moment, the interest is based on a lie. If you can’t follow through on your promises, you’re not positioning yourself as somebody who can deliver results. Not a great start. Even worse, emails with clickbait subject lines often end up in the spam folder before they reach recipients’ inboxes, damaging your overall deliverability.

Let’s explore how to reshape clickbait subject lines into credible ones. 

Here are some clickbait examples:

• 

  Don’t miss out: 99% off sale!!

  
  
• 

  Top secret strategies for 100% client retention

  
  
• 

  This one trick will make you a million 💰💰💰

  
  

All these examples promise unrealistic results with little effort. Your prospects are experts who want real outcomes. 

Try these subject lines instead to create intrigue while maintaining client trust:

• 

  Exclusive [%] discount for [company name]

  
  
• 

  How to reduce [pain point] by [%t]

  
  
• 

  Can we help you achieve[goal/KPI]?

  
  

These examples promise specific help with client pain points rather than unrealistic wins. Remember to use numbers in your promises that you can back up with hard evidence where needed. 

Triggering Spam Filters

Email providers protect their users from scams and unwanted messages. They use advanced algorithms to screen emails before they reach inboxes. If your emails contain language frequently used by scammers, it’s more likely the email provider will tag it as spam.

Detailed messages instantly feel more trustworthy. They offer clear value and show the human intelligence that went into writing them. 

Excessive Exclamation Marks or Using All Caps

Writing professional subject lines like a high school kid isn’t the best look. A picket fence of exclamation marks and dramatic caps may bring attention to the WhatsApp group, but it will put off prospects over email. This is a professional context, and you need to be taken seriously. 

Avoid these common punctuation mistakes: 

• 

  Overuse of exclamation marks, e.g., “Limited offer!!!”

  
  
• 

  Unnecessary caps, e.g., “GET YOUR DISCOUNT NOW”

  
  
• 

  Overuse of question marks, e.g., “Want to try our product???”

  
  

Yes, these subject lines may evoke urgency, but they aren’t trustworthy. They come across as overly dramatic or aggressive— the equivalent of screaming in someone’s face to say hello.

The same goes for emojis. While they can be used in great subject lines further down the funnel, emojis are more likely to appear unprofessional and spammy in cold emails. Avoid subject lines like, “How to skyrocket sales 😀🤩🚀🚀”

Not A/B Testing

Your recipients are your best editors. A/B and multivariate testing are the only ways to determine which subject line templates resonate with your target audience. It’s essential to build a tech stack so you can test different subject lines from your very first campaign. 

All of the other advice in this article should act as nothing more than a foundation to get you started. A/B and multivariate testing can seem like complex technical tasks, especially when thousands of emails are involved, but modern AI platforms can handle all aspects of A/B testing on autopilot, from content creation to results analysis. 

AI-driven A/B testing saves you from relying on intuition and making unnecessary errors. Instead, you develop optimal subject lines that bring clicks and conversions. It also helps you achieve the highest possible deliverability as you scale your outreach.

Make Personalized Cold Emails Easier With This!

Personalization is the secret sauce for email marketing. But it requires a gargantuan amount of manual effort. What’s more, traditional if-then automations have proven largely ineffective at delivering personalization at scale. 

GenAI tools like Artisan are changing how outbound teams approach personalization. They’re helping reps boost conversion rates without the hard work, while escaping the grind of follow-up emails. 

AI SDRs like Ava learn about your business and audience to craft an effective cold email outreach strategy, with a unique waterfall methodology that identifies the most relevant, timely personalization. 

Here’s how Ava helps your cold email outreach:

• 

  Auto-personalization that references the recipient’s latest activity

  
  
• 

  A unique waterfall process to identify the best personalization

  
  
• 

  Lead generation from a database of 300 million active email addresses

  
  
• 

  Full automation of follow-up emails to ensure an effective funnel

  
  
• 

  Continual strategy adjustment based on responses

  
  

Share Article

Author:

Dan Mowinski