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Compelling holiday email subject lines are the difference between your subscribers deleting your emails and opening them. There’s no room for generic, vague language during this busy time of year for inboxes.
Your campaign goals, audience preferences, and the type of content you’re promoting determine the best subject lines for your holiday emails.
For instance, younger shoppers might engage with emojis and casual language like “🎁 grab your holiday treats!” while luxury audiences might engage more with exclusive messaging, such as “Curated holiday collection.”
Join us below as we reveal 99 of the best holiday subject lines to inspire your campaigns this festive season.
Try Omnisend today to build holiday emails that sell, sell, sell
Tips for crafting effective holiday email subject lines
Create holiday email subject lines with high open rates with these seven tips:
Use the Omnisend email subject line generator: Our subject line generator sparks creative ideas when you’re stuck. It generates five results and offers the option to generate five additional alternatives. You can also use this tool when building your campaigns.
Stick to 40 characters or less: Most email platforms have a subject line cut-off of around 50 characters. Some small devices show less than 40 characters. Use our free subject line tester to check your character count and refine your subject line.
Personalize your messaging: Personalize your holiday email subject lines with customer names, wishlist items, or past purchases. Personalization creates a more intimate experience that can boost open rates and the likelihood of sales.
Use authentic urgency: Craft subject lines that communicate time-sensitive opportunities without lying or being manipulative. Use real data and genuine offers in your subject lines, maintain your brand voice, and use stock counters to build trust.
Spark curiosity: Spark intrigue that makes readers want to discover more. Hint at something valuable without revealing everything, compelling subscribers to open and explore your holiday offerings. For example, you could say, “Our top perfume revealed🥇.”
Create emotional triggers: Your subscribers will respond best to subject lines that trigger an emotion. Skip the generic buzzwords and zero in on compelling emotional hooks like gifting anxiety, family connection, hobbies, pastimes, and good cheer to encourage open rates.
Get seasonal: Rather than using generic “holidays” phrasing, create subject lines for Thanksgiving and other occasions like Christmas. Getting specific will improve relevance and differentiate your emails from less observant retailers.
Omnisend helps you create, design, target, and automate holiday email campaigns with an intuitive interface that requires no training. The free plan lets you send 500 emails/month to 250 contacts and includes $1 in bonus SMS to try.
Here’s how you can use it to create winning holiday campaigns:
Create professional holiday emails effortlessly
Build holiday emails without coding knowledge using the drag-and-drop email builder and template library. Customizing your email templates to match your brand’s visual identity takes only a few seconds. Plus, you can add dynamic product displays, discount codes, and more.
Save your best-performing email layouts and content blocks as reusable templates, making future campaign creation even faster.
Automate workflows
Omnisend’s pre-built workflows for welcome series, cart abandonment, and order confirmations save you time and enhance deliverability. You can customize message sequences and timing with an intuitive visual automation editor.
There’s also an option to combine email, SMS, and web push notifications in automations, helping you reach customers wherever they are.
Image via Omnisend
A/B test your emails
Test two different email subject lines, templates, and holiday offers on a small group of your subscribers to see what works best.
Omnisend can send your winning holiday email version to the rest of your audience based on which variant drives the most opens or clicks.
Segment with precision
Target holiday shoppers based on their buying patterns, average order values, and purchase history using Omnisend’s ecommerce-focused filters.
Use segmentation to create personalized campaigns, from weekly deals for engaged customers to win-back campaigns for lapsed shoppers.
Your segments also update in real time based on a specific condition (e.g., placed order, clicked campaign link) to keep your targeting on point.
Track performance
Track your holiday campaign performance through the Omnisend dashboard, including revenue metrics, sales from campaigns and automations, and audience growth across channels.
Compare orders, revenue, and subscriber engagement changes, and use that data to optimize your email marketing strategy.
Build your subscriber base
Capture new email subscribers with customizable, compliance-friendly forms and interactive elements like the Wheel of Fortune. Place your signup forms anywhere on your site, from popups to landing pages, giving visitors multiple chances to join your marketing list.
Your forms connect directly to automation workflows for immediate customer engagement and conversion opportunities.
Conclusion
The holidays are a fantastic opportunity to grow your sales via email, and the first step to success is to create a subject line that encourages open rates.
Personalization (using customer names or preferences), urgency (“24-hour flash sale”), and exclusivity (“VIP members only”) are proven tactics to stand out in crowded inboxes. You could also add an emoji to make your subject line more impactful.
It’s helpful to test different formats to see what works, and the same goes for your email’s content and design. Use Omnisend’s split-testing feature to compare subject lines, interactive elements, and content to find your winning formula.
Join Omnisend and automate your holiday email marketing campaigns
A holiday email subject line is the brief text preview that appears in your recipient’s inbox, showing them what your email is about before they open it.
What are catchy subject lines for emails?
Catchy email subject lines use attention-grabbing elements like personalization, action verbs, or compelling offers to increase the likelihood that recipients will open your messages. For instance, “Holiday sale” becomes “Jane, get 50% off wishlist items.”
What should be the subject of a Christmas greeting email?
Christmas greeting emails are simple holiday messages that build customer relationships. Your emails could share good wishes, offers, or year-end updates, but their primary purpose is keeping your store connected with shoppers.
What should I say in the subject line of an email?
Your email subject line should clearly state your message’s purpose so recipients immediately understand why you’re reaching out. Keep it under 40 characters to avoid getting cut off in mobile views and email previews.
Karolina is a content project manager and team lead at Omnisend, where she blends creative strategy with a keen focus on competitive intelligence. Outside of work, Karolina finds balance through her love of gardening, exploring new hiking trails, biking, and raising a bunch of boys.
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