The email subject line and preheader text are two important things to focus on when sending marketing emails. They are critical for the success of every email campaign and when done right, they can contribute to your email marketing metrics.
Initially, the email preheader began as sort of a sidekick to the subject line, and then their relationship evolved into a partnership with one complementing the other. Today, the email subject line and preheader should come together as a pair that works together to kickstart the success of your email marketing campaign.
What is a pre-header in an email?
Email preheader refers to the line of text that is shown after the subject line of an email in the inbox. The exact text shows up before the header of the email. However, it’s not uncommon to confuse the preheader text with the email preview text – but the two are not the same thing.
Preview text will only appear in the inbox, while on the other hand, the preheader text appears both in the inbox and in the email above the header area. Most of the time, hidden preheaders are preferred since they can take up a lot of valuable space at the top of the email that doesn’t add any additional value to your copy or design.
How does the preheader in an email differ from the email preview text?
To get a better understanding, it can help to learn more about why preheaders and preview texts get mixed up a lot. In the past, it wasn’t acceptable to hide the preheader text in the email since this was more likely to lead to the email ending up in spam.
However, email has come on quite a lot since then and hidden preheaders do not pose any risk to your email deliverability these days. A hidden preheader is what most people know as the preview text, which is why they get confused a lot.
Why is email preheader text important?
There are several reasons why using an email preheader in email marketing is an important part of the process. Some of the main reasons to use an email preheader include:
Help people preview emails
An email preheader gives readers a preview of the email, helping them get a better idea of the content that they can expect. Readers can then use this to determine if the email is necessary for them to read or contains content that they might find relevant or interesting before they decide whether or not to open it.
This is prime real estate for marketers to ensure recipients actually open the messages that come to their email inboxes.
Can increase email open rates
Readers will often look at the subject line first to get a better idea of whether or not the email is relevant to them, before looking at the preheader text to get an idea of the content included. Effective email preheaders can be used to convince recipients that this email is going to be worth opening to get access to helpful content or encourage them to open the email to find out more.
Avoid an unpolished look
If you do not add a customized preheader to your emails, the ISP will simply display the first line of coded content in the email. This could mean that when your recipient gets the email in their inbox, they might see snippets of text that are unhelpful or even off-putting like ‘view in web browser’.
Not only is this completely not engaging, but it can also make your email appear robotic, which leads to a heightened risk of emails being deleted or reported as spam before they are opened. In short, it decreases your email effectiveness, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
How long should the preheader text be?
An email preheader text can be between 40-130 characters. Keeping to this character limit will ensure that your preheader text is easy to read for both mobile and desktop users. When an email is opened on a desktop, the amount of preview text that is displayed may be affected by the subject line length.
On the other hand, when it is viewed on a mobile screen, the subject line length will not have any impact on the preheader text size. So, the limited character space applies to desktops and larger screens only.
However, keep in mind that for your preheader text to appear well on mobile devices, you should consider sticking to a shorter range of between thirty and fifty-five characters.
If you’re using a long preheader text, it’s important to ensure that the most essential and important points are towards the beginning, so that it is easy to understand even if the text is cut off before the end.
On the other hand, be careful when using a short preheader text since most email clients will automatically show lines of text from the beginning of your email to fill the space. Character restrictions are crucial for email marketers so try to stick to that 40-130 character range.
Preheader text best practices
When it comes to writing your email preheader text, follow some best practices to ensure that it works together with the subject line to grab the attention of your readers and encourage them to click through and open the email.
Your preheader text plays an important role in increasing your open rates and engagement, however, writing a good one can sometimes be challenging. Here are some of the main best practices to follow to help you get the best results.
Make the preheader text and subject line work together
Use the preheader text in a unique and creative way so that it fits in seamlessly with the subject line. One easy way to do this is to write it in a way that appears to be a follow-up of the subject line and follows the content of the actual email.
When you make your subject line work together with the preheader text, you can create something new and unique that piques the interest of your readers, encouraging them to want to open the email and find out more.
Encourage curiosity about email content
There are several ways that you can use the email preheader text to spark the curiosity of your readers. You can make your subscriber base curious about the contents of your emails by giving them a sneak peek of what is coming.
For example, you can use the preheader text to start a story or sentence without finishing it or asking out-of-the-box questions related to your email to entice readers to open it up and find out more.
You can also imply that the email contains content that the readers know but may have forgotten about, or let readers know that when they click open, they will get an email that contains new information that may be helpful for them.
In any case, it’s a quick and effective way to make recipients curious about what the email contains.
Use the fear of missing out
Fear of missing out or FOMO is a feeling that often drives people to quickly make decisions so that they can avoid missing out on opportunities, information, experiences, purchases, and more.
You can use your preheader text to create this feeling in your readers, by making the emails seem exclusive and providing a limited time.
Include a call to action
A call to action or CTA is an important part of your email body and in some cases, the subject line.
However, you shouldn’t ignore them when writing your preheader text, either, since they can be used here effectively to encourage more people to open the email. Keep the CTA precise and short and write it in such a way that makes it seem easy to do. Name some benefits of following the call to action.
Don’t repeat the subject line
After your subject line, the email preheader text gives you another chance at making a great first impression, so it’s worth taking the time to come up with something interesting, valuable, and new to write rather than making the mistake of simply rehashing the subject line.
Personalize it
Email personalization can make a huge impact in email marketing and including it in the preheader message gives you the chance to send out emails that recipients feel were designed especially for them.
Simply adding the email recipient’s name to the preheader is something that is easy to do with most good email marketing tools and can make all the difference when it comes to creating a more personal feeling with the email that makes recipients want to open it more.
Use emojis
Emojis can definitely be used to support your email marketing efforts and get more attention from your recipients.
In the preheader text, you can include emojis to stand out from the crowd in the inbox and grab the attention of the user, even if your email is not the first one on the list.
Email preheader examples
Now you know more about email preheaders, there are two different ways that you can add them to your email to start using them for your campaign. You can do this either using code or without using code.
If you want to use code, then you can show the preheader text as the first text in the email. Email clients simply pull this to the preheader section in the inbox. However, you will probably want to hide this in the actual body of the email, which you can do using some simple code for email design.
On the other hand, most email service providers allow you to easily do this without using code; all you need to do is write your preheader below the option to fill in your subject line.
Email preheader text should work together with your subject line to get the attention of your readers and encourage them to open the email and find out more.
Wrapping up
Besides an email subject, preheader text is a crucial part of your email marketing strategy. Do it right, and you can attract even more attention to the email body and drive more engagement from your email list.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the preheader text in an email?
This is the text right of the email subject line that previews what the email is about. The perfect preview encourages people to open the email and click through.
What is the best way to write the preheader text?
The perfect message in a preheader text is short, coherent, and relates to the subject line. Do not reinvent the wheel. Effective preheaders summarize the subject line in a few short words and fall within the limited character space.
