Subject line personalization

Personalize your email's subject line by adding a contact's name or other details you've collected through your sign-up form as variable tags

Review your plan: This feature is not available in all Constant Contact email plans. If you don’t have full access, you may need to upgrade your plan.

Your subject line and preheader are a powerful combination because they're one of the first things your contacts see in their inboxes and can be the deciding factor when your contacts choose to open your email. You want your subject line to be especially attention-grabbing, and subject line personalization helps you stand out in the inbox by adding variable tags that display with information that is unique to each of your contacts, like a first or last name. When your contacts read your subject line, they're more likely to engage with your email because it has been customized just for them.

• Writing a subject line for personalization
• Insert a contact detail into the subject line
• See an example of a personalized subject line in the inbox
• Troubleshoot display issues

See it done: Check out our video tutorial for crafting the perfect subject line.

Writing a subject line for personalization

Sticking a first name into the beginning of a subject line is an easy and effective place to start, but if you want to truly make your subject line engaging, you might need to think a little differently about how you write it.

• First ask yourself the personalization makes sense for your email. In some cases it may not be necessary and better saved for an email with a different purpose.
• Next, think about the contact details and custom fields you know you have on file first, and then write your subject line with them in mind. If there is information that you think could be worthwhile in your subject line but you haven't been asking for it, it might be a good time to update you sign-up form with a new field.
• Finally, think about how different combinations of contact details and custom fields pair together—it's ok to include more than one variable tag in your subject line if they work together naturally. A first name is especially easy to pair with something else, but you can get more creative by switching up your word choice.

Here are some examples:

Be a better marketer: Want to learn more about subject line personalization? Check out 6 Ways to Personalize Subject Lines in Your Emails!

Insert a contact detail into the subject line

A good subject line is short, tells your contacts exactly what content they'll find in your email, and is catchy enough to grab your readers' attention. Personalizing a subject line with a name or other contact information can really appeal to each contact's unique interests.

1. In your email draft, click "Email settings" or anywhere on the email header to edit it.
   
    
    
2. Next to the subject line, click the Personalize button.
   
   
    
3. In the Personalize Your Subject overlay, select a contact detail or custom field from the drop-down menu.
4. (Optional) In case you don't have the selected contact detail on file for all of your contacts, enter secondary text in the field. This text displays for email recipients who are missing the contact detail.
5. Click the OK button. This adds the variable tag and secondary text to the end of your subject line in double brackets: [[VariableTagName OR "Secondary text"]].
   
   
    
6. Finish writing your subject line and click Save. The variable tag is always added to the end of your subject line and you can either write around it or copy and paste it into the desired location within your subject line. Make sure to include a space and any desired punctuation between the bracketed contact detail and the rest of the subject line, and use the preview above the Subject field to help you.
   Note: To add a second variable tag to your subject line, repeat steps 2-5. When the Personalize Your Subject overlay opens, it defaults to the first variable tag you used, but changing it won't impact the first variable tag.
   
    
    

If you're not happy with the personalization you added, it's easy to remove. Delete the double brackets and the variable tag in between them: [[variable tag]], then you're ready to start fresh.

Did you know? There are other ways to personalize your email to increase engagement, including adding emoji to your subject line. And if you're not sure what works with your audience, you can always A/B test your subject line too!

See an example of a personalized subject line in the inbox

Important: Subject line personalization doesn't display when previewing an email or sending a test email. Please see the Troubleshoot display issues section below for more information.

When you send your email, each contact sees the unique detail you have on file for them in your contact records. Here is what the variable tags look like in your email draft and in the inbox:

Subject line as seen in the email editor

In the following image, you can see the variable tags for a contact detail and custom field visible in the email header. Both variable tags include fallback text to display if the information isn't available for a contact.

Subject line displaying personal information

In the following image you can see how both the contact detail and a custom field both display in the inbox. Both of the variables are pulling contact information from the contact's record to personalize the subject line with both a name and a dog's name.

Subject line displaying personal information and fallback text

In the following image the first variable for the contact name is displaying as expected by pulling the contact's name from their contact record, but there is no dog name on file in the custom field, so the secondary text is displaying instead.

Troubleshoot display issues

Important: Personalization uses variable tags. If you're not comfortable working with HTML code, it's best to delete the entire variable tag, including the double brackets that surround it, and use the Personalization button to add it back into your subject line.

There are a couple of reasons that cause the subject line personalization to not display properly:

• Missing contact details - If you don't include the secondary text in your personalization and you don't have the specific contact information that you want to display on file, the variable tag appears blank. To prevent this, make sure to always include secondary text. If you want to capture missing contact information to use in your subject line, you can send a survey to collect the information and make sure your sign-up form includes the field so you can capture it going forward for all your new contacts.
• Last name appears with first name - Sometimes the first name and last name of a contact are together as the first name. This can happen when the spreadsheet used to import your contacts has a "name" column that gets mapped to the "first name" heading in Constant Contact. To correct this, the column can be separated into first and last name columns and then re-imported.
• Double brackets - The personalization includes [[double brackets]] around the variable tag and secondary text: [[VariableTagName OR "Secondary text"]]. Deleting any of the brackets causes the code to break. For example, the first bracket is missing:  [VariableTagName OR "Secondary text"]]
• Straight quotes - There are "straight quotes" around the secondary text. If you use “curly quotes,” it causes the code to break.
• Preview and test - Subject line personalization doesn't display when previewing an email or when sending a test email. To see what the personalization looks like, copy the email and send yourself the copy as a live send. Make sure you have the contact information or custom field information that you want to display filled in for your contact record too! If everything looks acceptable when you receive the copied email, you're ready send your original email to your contacts.
• A/B testing - Subject line personalization option is disabled when you enable A/B testing on the schedule page, however there is a way to test personalized subject lines. Create one or two personalized subject lines, copy them (see step 6), and paste them into Notepad or TextEdit. Next, make sure you have a non-personalized subject line in your email draft. When you reach the schedule page, paste the personalized subject lines into the A and B subject line fields.

Questions?