Surprised by a stat on AI email subject lines

I read a report from Litmus last week that said personalized subject lines get 26% more opens, but AI-generated ones that avoid personalization entirely actually do better for B2B. That caught me off guard because I assumed more personalization was always the win. I tested it on 3 campaigns this month for a client in Boise and the non-personalized AI subjects won every time. Has anyone else seen this pattern with their own lists?

3 comments

3 Comments

ninaross1mo ago

My B2B list of around 2,000 contacts in the Pacific Northwest showed the exact opposite when I ran a similar test last month. The personalized AI subjects beat the generic ones by about 18% on open rates across three separate sends to different industries. I wonder if it depends a lot on your audience's size or industry because I'm seeing the opposite pattern over here.

angela_dixon1mo ago

but see i feel like that's a total fluke or maybe your A/B test was set up wrong. i've run tests on b2b lists way bigger than 2k and generic subject lines almost always win out. the thing is, when you personalize with AI it gets real obvious real fast that it's automated. like "hey [name] check this out" just feels lazy and people sniff that out. plus your sample size of 2k split across industries is tiny, one outlier industry could swing your whole data. i bet if you ran it again with a fresh list you'd see generic creep back ahead.

campbell.logan1mo ago

Industry makes a huge difference there. B2B buyers in the Pacific Northwest might just respond better to that personal touch since they're dealing with more relationship driven sales cycles.