130 Best Christmas Email Subject Lines for Holiday Campaigns

How subject lines help your engagement

While you have to make sure your customers are not disappointed with the content itself, all your effort in creating a great package will only be rewarded if your contacts open the email.

Email subject lines are among the top reasons that make users open a message. According to Zero Bounce Email Statistics Report, 43% of respondents click on an email based solely on that.

Ideally, a good combination of relevant content, good timing, and a nice offer will do well, especially if you can demonstrate all that in a concise subject line.

“Limited-time offers to gift your loved ones this XMas” is a great example of a Christmas subject line: it is relevant because people are looking to buy gifts, the timing is appropriate as Christmas is near, and it offers something of value. At the same time, it isn’t giving too much: you have to open the message to check the offers. 

Mini-study: What high-performing Christmas email subject lines have in common

We went as far as to conduct a mini-study of what high-performing Christmas email subject lines have in common.

Enjoy and get inspired! 

130 Christmas email subject lines

Now that we know the importance of subject lines in open rates and what works best, it’s time to check good examples that will drive your numbers up and help your business have a Merry Christmas as well. 

General Merry Christmas email subject lines

Miller’s Ale House’s message is a nice example of how to couple good content design with our focus: a good, concise subject line. It is a great way to build anticipation for Christmas, and it combines clever use of emojis and appropriate language to put customers in the mood for the season. 

Check some other good examples of general subject lines for Christmas:

Early Christmas subject lines

Personalized subject lines

FOMO subject lines

Generating the fear of missing out is a lot about showing great value, and when something seems too good to be true, customers are likely to engage. Beats by Dre’s audio devices are sought-after, so a simple “Last chance to shop our Holiday Sale” is already going to attract a lot of eyes. When you open the email and see that products are all under $100, you are likely to click that “Shop” button. Check more examples:

Festive subject lines

Discounts and deals subject lines

Subject lines are meant to make you click and open the message, so up to 25% off any order is definitely enticing. Once you open the email, you get 20% off any order of $50, and 25% off for $125 orders or more. 

The clever use of the “up to” is a neat little trick – a lot of people will pay attention to the 25% off and readily open the message. Yes, it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but it’s also not lying, and well, you probably clicked. 

Then, there’s a promo code. Very enticing indeed. 

Check below for other ideas:

Gift guides subject lines

You’ve probably felt lost before gifting someone before, and receiving a gift guide from a major company like Google can spark a lot of ideas. 

Other than the effective subject line, we also like the “Great gifts to spark simple joys” line and the promo code for free shipping. 

Take a look at other examples:

Catchy subject lines

You can get whimsical and go for a more playful tone – it’s Christmas, so sounding cheerful is definitely on the cards. Go for cultural references, puns, funny jokes, and use your creativity. Don’t forget to add an accompanying preview text, though! More on this later. 

Wonderbly’s “Knock knock” is a good example of a popular reference being used in this context. 

Last-minute subject lines

Cake Box’s subject line is simple and effective: it reminds you there’s still time to buy something, but not a lot of it: it’s the last day. 

December is a frantic month, and it is pretty common for people to leave the gifts for later, up until the point they are desperate to find anything. This email sure takes care of that, while also working a bit on the FOMO feeling – the fear of not being able to gift someone, while also having had the opportunity to do so at the last-minute.

Check more examples:

Post-Christmas subject lines

How to write a good Christmas email subject line: Rules and techniques

Personalization

Personalizing subject lines is, first of all, a great way of avoiding the spam box or getting ignored. 

Adding a client’s name is a simple but neat little trick that shows you care enough to address them more intimately, and if you can incorporate some of your buyer’s needs into that subject line, even better. If you know they are looking for shoes because they browsed your website, adding that to the subject line is a great touch.

Use the information you have to your advantage to write a good personalized subject line. That’s the first step – remember to add more personal touches to the message itself, too. If you need help with that, check our ultimate email personalization guide. 

FOMO and buyer psychology

Buyer psychology, in simpler terms, is what makes a buyer tick. This involves understanding things like a person’s habits and purchasing patterns, like some people buy on a whim, while other people research more. A lot of factors, such as social influence, the initial price, and the fear of missing out (FOMO), can make someone buy a product.

Fear of missing out, by the way, is a powerful tool in sales, as it allows you to demonstrate value and, at the same time, create a feeling in the customer that they could be losing an opportunity they will regret later. One way you can use that in your favor is by writing persuasive subject lines that offer something of value, but with a deadline.

Make it mobile-friendly

The number of visible characters in a subject line depends on the device and the person’s email service provider. 

As a rule of thumb, try to keep the character number around 30-35, even though bigger screen sizes allow for more. If you need to write more, prioritize the essential information first, ensuring that the “hook” gets read. 

Even though this might seem very limiting, it will help you be more concise, which is a good thing – according to the ZeroBounce’s Email Marketing Statistics Report that we already mentioned, 67% of the survey respondents prefer short emails. You might as well keep subject lines tight and lead with the hook.

Use festive language and emojis

You don’t want to sound too corporate here: it’s the end of the year, it’s Christmas, everybody’s a bit tired and looking forward to celebrating with their loved ones. Your Christmas email marketing campaigns should reflect that, and so should your subject lines. 

Use festive language, include neat references to Christmas through your choice of words, and add one emoji or two. 

Strike a balance between a more casual, holiday-season tone and not sounding too unprofessional. Too many emojis might annoy your subscribers, and a dull subject line won’t get many clicks.

Preview text

Adding an appropriate preview text can be really helpful in achieving better engagement rates. 

Previews are short lines of text below or beside the email subject line that provide a little more information about the message’s content, like this:

You could send a standard Merry Christmas message and add a preview text talking about special deals, or perhaps lead with a discount offer, but tell customers more about that discount with your preview line. 

Either way, use the extra space in your favor and work on encouraging more clicks, because previews are supposed to add to your subject lines, after all.

Wrap-up

The holidays are one of the most important commercial seasons of the year, and everybody is competing for attention. We hope that our tips and Christmas subject line examples help you stand out from everybody else. 

Happy sending — and Merry Christmas!