Thought I’d post another interesting observation from a handful of campaigns that ran A/B Split Tests on their subject lines (company names disguised as “Acme”). The first 4 are from the same company, sending emails for 4 different web properties that they run…

In almost all the examples above, the subject line with “free” had a lower open rate. So should you avoid the word “FREE” in your subject line? In my opinion, don’t use “free” if it detracts from relevance. If you replace your company name with “free” or if you remove the urgency with “free,” your open rate is going to suffer.