---
title: I tested the best ways to mail people
date: "2022-01-06T06:01:25Z"
lastmod: "2022-01-06T06:01:28Z"
categories:
  - experiments
wp_id: 3254
---

![I tested the best ways to mail people](/blog/assets/email-ab-test.webp)

I emailed [My Year in 2021](/blog/my-year-in-2021/) to ~2,700 people. It had 3 experiments.

## Do friends open my mail more than strangers?

I split the list into 2 groups:

1. My contacts: ~1,000 people I knew (I've mailed them)
2. Strangers: ~1,700 people I didn't know (I've never mailed them)

**My guess**: strangers would open the mail 30% less often.

**Reality**: They opened it 40% less. 50% of my contacts opened the mail, vs only 28% of strangers.

## Are the first and last links most clicked?

I sent 2 versions of the email to my contacts. The order of links was different.

- [Book reviews](/blog/books-in-2021/) did 30% worse at #6 than #1 (62% down to 43%)
- [PyCon talk](https://youtu.be/vEvHq4qW3bk) did 67% worse at #4 than #1 (10.4% down to 3.4%)
- [Landmark course](https://www.landmarkworldwide.com/advanced-programs/leadership-and-assisting-programs/introduction-leaders-program) did 7% worse at #4 than #2 (20.7% down to 19.2%)
- [write more about](/blog/can-foreigners-enter-hollywood/) did 100% worse at #4 than #2 (4.4% down to 0%)
- [Tools for Data Science](https://onlinedegree.iitm.ac.in/course_pages/BSCSE2002.html) did 39% better at #2 than #6 (17% down to 10%)
- [Pranayama](https://www.artofliving.org/programs) did 62% better at #5 than #3 (3.4% up to 5.5%)

**My guess**: the first and last links would be clicked 20% more often than those in the middle.

**Reality**: The links higher up were clicked more often 5/6 times. Click rates drop but don't climb up at the end.

## Do provocative subject lines increase open rates?

I sent 2 versions of the email to my contacts. The subject lines were different.

1. Bland: "My year in 2021"
2. Provocative: "Where I failed in 2021"

**My guess**: the provocative title will have 2X the open rate of the bland one.

**Reality**: The open rates were about the same (49% for provocative, 51% for bland). Either the second title was not provocative enough, or the bland was interesting enough. I need to re-run this experiment.

## Learnings

I learned 3 things.

1. Strangers open my mails less than I thought. Make more friends 🙂
2. People scan emails top-down (not top-down, then bottom-up - like I do) and click on top links. Move the main link first.
3. I'm no good at creating high-contrast variations in content. Take help.