The key to boosting open rates and engagement — Stripo.email

Email design is not only about beautiful visuals, impactful copy, and relevant content. It is also what the recipient sees before they open the email. And we are not talking about the subject line now.

The email preheader is another important part that greets the recipient and has a serious impact on the performance of the email and its perception by the recipient. In this article, we will look at what it is, the best practices for creating an email preheader, and how Stripo can help you quickly and easily create your own email preheaders.

Key takeaways

1. Email preheaders have a direct impact on email performance, increasing open rates, click through and click-to-open rates significantly.
2. The best way to create a compelling email preheader is to mind its length, sprinkle some sense of urgency or personalization, as well as mention value for the recipient.
3. Automatically created preheaders or ones that use the same content as subject lines can look less professional and can tank your email performance.

What is an email preheader?

First, let’s start with the basics. The email preheader is the text that comes after the email subject line and can be either custom or generated automatically from the first line of the email body. Basically, it’s a preview text of your email that inbox providers show to the recipient as an additional hint at what your email is about.

Why does email preheader text matter?

You may ask the question, “I already have a descriptive subject line, so why bother with the preheader text?”, and that’s where significant email preheader benefits come into play.

Make a direct impact on email performance

First and foremost, email preheader grants you an edge in terms of email performance. They have a positive impact on some important metrics of any email marketing campaign. According to the GetRepsonse report, email preheaders increase:

• open rate from 39.28% to 44.67%;
• click-through rate from 3.67% to 4.54%;
• click to open rate from 9.33% to 10.16%.

And it would be a shame to lose that boost if you don’t pay enough attention to your email preheaders.

Provide a second chance to grab attention

The subject line is not your only tool for attracting attention and encouraging the recipient to open the email. The email preheader, due to its greater length, can also accommodate additional hooks that will catch the recipient and further interest them. For example, this could be a description of a discount or a warning that the promotion mentioned in the subject line will end soon. As a result, the subject line and preheader can work in synergy to double the impact of the first impression you make on the recipient in the email client window.

Give you an additional way to explain what the email is about

Any marketer has heard at least once that the subject line should be as descriptive as possible and clearly display what the email message will be about. But what if your niche or specific topic of the email campaign is difficult to fit into the subject line character limits ?

In addition to attracting attention, preheaders provide additional space for a more detailed description of what exactly this or that email is about.

Email preheader best practices

Now, it’s about time to discuss tips and tricks to make for writing effective preheaders to make them look good and encourage readers to open your email.

Mind the length of your email preheader

In many cases, the preheader length is between 85 and 100 characters. This allows you to create concise text that has enough characters to be clearly described and will still display well on web email clients and mobile devices.

Even though the length of the email preview text is not limited, it is still worth considering the final experience of the recipient, who will have to see the text cut off if you overdo it with the length of the preheader. So keep it brief.

Besides that, on many desktop clients, the length of your email subject line determines how much of your preview text is displayed, so keep the balance between your subject line and preheader length, making sure both deliver a compelling message.

Sprinkle a sense of urgency

This marketing technique is as old as the world and is simply called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). According to statistics, 60% of consumers make purchases as a result of it, so using this approach in email preheaders can positively affect the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

For example, in an email preheader, you can indicate that there are only 20 units left of the promotional product you are advertising in the email. In another case, you can give a sense of time running out by writing that the discount on the purchase will end in a couple of days. All of these approaches give a sense of urgency and that the benefit should not be missed. Email preheader is your blank canvas for this approach, so try it out.

Bring value with your email preheader

If creating a sense of urgency is not your email marketing style, you can always add value to your email preheader. Specifically, mention the benefit that a person will receive (or that is already waiting for the person, if we are talking about some kind of promotional action) by opening the email. Besides that, you can always write a short summary on what your promo campaign will give recipients in exchange for the actions needed to be taken from them.

Add a bit of personalization

Personalized preheaders are also a great approach. The simplest option is to add the recipient’s name to the preheader. However, a more personalized and valuable option for the subscriber would be to mention past interactions, big purchases, favorite products, and other things that directly impact the quality of the recipient’s interaction with your brand.

Read more about email personalization, its various approaches, benefits, as well as what industry experts think about it in our dedicated article.

Make it fancy with emojis

Last but not least is an approach that will make your preheader text look good. Emojis can add more color to rather stale texts that recipients see in their inboxes. Besides that, incorporating emojis in your email marketing can lead to a 29% increase in unique open rates and a 28% rise in unique click-through rates.

However, it all depends on your public tone of voice, industry, and email campaign theme. Besides that, keep in mind who your audience is, as it has been proven that different generations imply different meanings behind the emojis. As a result, while some of your audience will find particular emojis funny and engaging in the context, the other half may not understand them at all.

Don’ts of email preheader text

Knowing what to do is not enough to prevent yourself from making mistakes. That’s why it’s important to discuss the actions you should definitely avoid when creating email preheader text.

Don’t make it the same as the subject line

A common mistake most email marketers make is using the same content for the subject and preheader of the email. Using the same content for both can trigger spam and, at the same time, look unprofessional.

As a result, always make the preheader complementary to the subject as it makes the email more obvious, professional, and can save you from ending up in the Spam folder.

Don’t leave email preheader creation to email clients

If you decide not to include an email preheader at all, email clients will do it for you. Email clients pull the text from the first lines of your email and place it as the email preheader, and in most cases, this looks not so pretty, to say the least. It can grab technical texts that are hidden behind the curtain, like alt text of images or the first names of your menu bar. Besides that, it won’t count the size of the email preheader, and as a result, this text will be pretty long and cut off by screens and the email client itself.

To avoid all of this, custom preview text is a must, so don’t neglect it and take your time to come up with the most suitable and fancy preheader text for your email content.

Don’t make the email preheader too long

As much as you want to fit everything you need into an email preheader, you’re still limited by the screen sizes of your subscribers and what their email clients show them. It’s better to leave something out than to have your recipient’s text cut off mid-sentence, so always stick to standard email preheader sizes.

How to add an email preheader text in Stripo

Adding custom preheader text to your email is easy when you have the right tools. Stripo provides you with several options for adding it, and here’s how they work.

Basic email preheader text

To add your custom preheader text, open the Message Settings menu. Here, all subject lines and phereader texts are added.

After that, type the preheader text you need into the Hidden Preheader input field.

You can also add emojis by clicking on the emoji button and choosing them from the extensive list.

Voila, you are good to go. This text will be saved automatically, so no further action is needed.

AI-generated preheader text

If you don’t have time for brainstorming, but you have the overall idea of your future email preheader, you can always turn to GenAI power. In the same Message Settings, click on the Improve with AI button.

You will open a small menu, where you can input a prompt, based on which AI will generate your preheader text. Or, you generate an email preheader based on your current email content by clicking on the button with the same name.

Once you pick your option, AI will require a few seconds to think and you will receive a full-fledged email preheader text. You can generate as many email preheader examples and tweak them as many times as you need, until you have the one that suits you most.

Besides that, using the same options and custom prompts, you can tweak your own text using GenAI capabilities to your advantage.

Filling preheader text with white space

Not everyone wants (or sees the need) to add a preheader. Since it is a mandatory thing, as we have already mentioned earlier, it will be formed from the first texts of the email automatically. To avoid a mess in the form of text, we provide you with a preview text hack to easily and simply fill the preheader with empty characters that are not displayed in the recipient’s inbox and serve as a huge gap between the subject line and the body of the email in the recipient’s email client.

In the Message Settings menu, click on the Fill in with white space button.

You’ll see white spaces in the input field, and it’s completely normal. They won’t be visible in the inbox, so now you don’t have to worry about figuring out the appropriate email preheader.

Wrapping up

An email preheader is not only a mandatory thing for any email you send. It’s an additional field to convey your message, hook your recipients, and bring value to them. You can make your email more personal or give it a sense of urgency using email preheaders. And don’t forget a big impact on the email performance if you nail your email preheader right. We’ve gathered the best practices for making your phereader flawless, as well as the things you should avoid when creating it. Apply them in Stripo, with the wide range of features created specifically for making email preheaders right.