Emojis in the subject: not all work the same in the inbox

Category: Email Marketing

It is impossible to spend more than 5 minutes in social networks or in instant messaging groups without encountering an emoji. From the face that winks at many other symbols that make the message more fun, quick and easy to understand: hands, traffic signs, flowers, animals, weather symbols, clothes ... Emoji are already a standard in our personal communication and also have a niche in the most commercial email marketing.

For a couple of years we have been saying that using symbols increases the rate of openings, both in corporate messages and in advertising campaigns. The data show that you get attractive emails that stand out more in the inbox. But not all emojis work the same and some get higher statistics.

A Return Path study has analyzed an entire year of newsletters taking advantage of monthly events to see which emojis achieved the best results. Thus, for the New Year, the emoji of a cava bottle has more openings than a few toasting glasses, 22% versus 9%. However, for Saint Patrick the opposite is true: emails are opened more with a pair of beer jugs (21%) than if they have only one (17%).

Choosing emoji is therefore something worth paying attention to, although it seems to mean practically the same thing. It can be more complicated when there are many similar for example for Valentine, because you have to choose one of the many romantic emojis: the brand of lipstick is the one that wins with 24%, while the face with hearts in the eyes stays with 18%. Testing the subject is a good practice and not only to include or not emojis, but also to decide which ones stand out more in your subscribers' inbox.

One possible conclusion of the study is that they get more attention the more specific the emoji. Mother's Day data make it clear: a manicure (24%) has more readings than simply the face of a woman (7%). In addition, other data are also valued as the complaints by spam or that the message arrives in the inbox and the woman emoji is the one that obtains the worse ones. It is possible that it is because it is very generic and does not bring almost value to the matter.

When choosing an emoji, remember that:

• It must be representative of the content and unequivocal so that there is no error of interpretation in what they will find when opening the message.
• They are usually included at the beginning or end of the subject but you can also combine them with the text and replace a specific word to make it more colorful.
• Do not abuse them: one or two are enough because more could be considered junk mail.
• Confirm that your emojis look good in different browsers and mail managers so they do not emit incompatible symbols that make it difficult to understand.

It is clear that there are other elements that influence the opens, not only the symbols, also the time of sending or the relation with the subscribers. But we hope that this data can serve as a reference to test in your own campaigns and thus decide which emoji will make you add points in the results.

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