Not sure which subject line will get your email opened? Write both. AuthorSend sends each to a slice of your list, waits, and sends the one that did better to everyone else.
Set it up
- Open a draft campaign and write your subject line as usual.
- Under it, choose Test a second subject line and write the other one.
- Pick three things:
- Test on — how much of your list is in the test. At 20%, one in ten readers gets each line, and the other 80% get the winner.
- Winner by — opens or clicks. Opens are the usual choice; clicks suit an email whose whole point is the button.
- Choose after — how long to wait before the winner is chosen, from one hour to a day. Four hours is a good default; most opens happen in the first few.
- The line under your choices shows the split in your own numbers, such as "100 get A and 100 get B. After 4 hours, the line more readers opened goes to the other 800."
Send or schedule it as usual. The wait starts when the send starts.
How the winner is chosen
- The test groups are a random shuffle of your recipients, not your oldest or newest readers.
- Only real readers count. Opens made by a mail provider's image proxy and clicks made by a link scanner are left out.
- If the two lines tie, your first line wins.
- If a sending limit holds the test back, the winner is chosen as soon as the last test email is out.
See the result
While the test runs, the campaign shows Testing two subject lines with both lines' numbers so far. Once it is sent, the campaign and its report show each line's opens and clicks, which one won, and how many readers it went to.
Duplicating a tested campaign keeps both subject lines and the test settings, so you can run the same test again or remove it.