They say, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” I’m not sure who “they” are, but in this case I agree with them.
In email marketing, your first impression comes from three parts: the sender or “from” name, the subject line, and the preview text (aka) Email “envelope”. Together, these elements form an important part of any effective marketing strategy. Everyone remembers the “from” name and subject line because your email service provider (ESP) won’t let you send email without them.
But preview text is a completely different story. If you forget it, you leave the first impression to the subscriber’s email client.
In this article, you’ll learn how to control preview text and add it to your template to ensure your email’s first impression is perfect.
What exactly is email preview text?
Preview text is a piece of text below or next to the subject line of an email in your inbox that gives you a deeper look into the content of the email. We’ll use the term “preview text”, but you may see it by other names:
- mailbox call this fragment
- Apple Mail call it preview
- prospect call it message preview
No matter what it’s called, this copy is preview text. Here is an example of preview text:
Nowadays, all email clients (at least the US ones) have good support for previewing text. Most email clients display email preview text by default, which means it’s a widely used way to contact subscribers and support subject lines.
However, the mechanism by which the email client extracts this content depends on the email client itself and the subscriber’s inbox settings.
While email clients typically extract preview text from the first line of an email copy, some clients extract preview text from image ALT text. In rare cases, the email client will start from Tags and other code generate preview text. Still, code being pulled isn’t as common as it once was.
 |
what is your What does the preview text look like? Use Litmus Email Preview to preview your emails in over 100 email clients, apps, and devices to see what’s displayed. And ensure perfect preview text for every email in every inbox. |
Why is email preview text important?
You have limited space (and time) to convince your subscribers to open your email, so every character counts. Here’s how email preview text can improve your subscriber experience and improve performance.
Improve open rates
Email preview text allows you to add more context to your subject line, increasing your email open rates.
Don’t believe us? Do some preview text testing yourself. Autoplicity almost saw Open rate increased by 8% When they start using preview text. Through testing, WeddingWire found that click-through rates increased by 30%.
Build expectations and set expectations
Your email preview text can build on your subject line to become increasingly engaging to your subscribers. For example, if your subject line announces a sale, the preview text can display “Up to 60% off!” or “Now through Friday” to help subscribers understand what they’ll see in the email.
Increase personalization and relevance
Email preview text feels a bit like a note appended to a standard subject line, which means you can add a name or relevant details based on your personal feel and based on your subscriber’s actions.
“Customers want to receive emails that are more relevant, personal and enjoyable, but marketers struggle to find the right data points to create these experiences. Use tools like this litmus personalizationMarketers can go beyond the limitations of ESP to create the truly personalized emails that customers expect, while also providing excellent opportunities to collect critical zero-party and first-party data to help inform future marketing campaigns.
Strengthen brand voice and messaging
Is your brand simple or fun? Do you joke or talk about statistics? Preview text has more space to showcase your brand’s tone. If you need help making your point, litmus assistant An AI tone editor can help.
The difference between preview text and pre-title text
What about email header text? Some marketers use these terms interchangeably, but they are actually two different things.
- Preview text Appears in your inbox after the subject line
- Prefix text is text that appears in an email above the subject area and above the body of the email (hence called a preheading in email marketing)
In the past, hiding content in emails was looked down upon and not considered good practice. The subject text must be visible in your email to avoid ending up in spam folders. But as email evolves, hiding content becomes more common without compromising your privacy Email deliverability Just like before.
Visible pre-headers are less common these days because they take up valuable space at the top of your email and generally don’t add much value to your design. If you use visible header text, make sure it makes sense within your email and subject line. If the header text only serves as support for the subject line, don’t display it in the email.
You can also add hidden preheader text that only appears in the inbox, and then include visible preheader text that works with the email design, such as this abandoned cart email from Rudy’s eCommerce store:
Subject line: Don’t let free shipping go to waste
Preview text: Let us make it easier with free shipping
Prefix text: Your free shipping is expiring soon
Adding preview text to email templates is easy
Adding preview text to an email is fairly easy – let’s do it step by step.
1. Create compelling clips
Do you want your email previews to drive sales? Spark curiosity? Make your subscribers laugh? Your first step is to choose a goal or topic that aligns with your message. Here are some things you can try:
- curiosity: Generate interest with questions, suspense, or teasers of exclusive offers.
- Email personalization: Use dynamic tags such as name or purchase history to make it relevant.
- Call to action (CTA): Gently encourage recipients to open the email.
Then, start writing! Artificial intelligence tools such as litmus assistant can help you brainstorm ideas, and your final choice should balance cleverness and clarity. You probably don’t want your preview text to leave subscribers scratching their heads and saying, “Huh?”
2. Add preview text through email tool
How you add preview text to your email code depends on your Email Design Tool And if you also want a unique title text.
There are no right or wrong answers here, and you can always test methods to see what your email list will respond to.
If you want the email preview and title to use the same text:
If your email design already has visible pre-titles or you plan to use initial copy in your email, you don’t need to do anything to add preview text to your email.
Copy the preview text into the first part of the email, even above the image or link, to prevent alt text from showing up in the preview text. You could use this copy as alt text for any image above the copy, but you’ll end up with duplicate copy and alt text that has nothing to do with the image, which is bad for accessibility.
If you want to customize the preview text:
If you’d like a different snippet of copy to appear as preview text, many ESPs have a field you can fill in (usually next to the newly added subject line). These dedicated fields in the Add preview text to email tool will automatically add the code to your email.
If your ESP doesn’t have a dedicated field for preview text, you can simply add
Add it manually after the tag, as shown below:
