Dela Quist in thought

Email open rates tend to climb when subject lines are around 50 or 80 characters, but tend to middle out when the length is 60 or 70 characters, according to CEO Dela Quist of Alchemy Worx.

Quist made these statements during his keynote at MediaPost's Email Insides Summit Conference. He reportedly drew the research from 250 million messages and 660 subject lines. Clients included Paypal and Intercontinental Hotels.

50-character subject lines with a "powerful" offer were considered most appealing.

80-character lines or longer worked too, as long as the subject was described in an enticing manner.