Our newsletterVendor reportSopro, 2026
An offer in the subject line makes 77% of B2B prospects more likely to open a cold email, while shocking subject lines put off 32%
Cold outreach
| Subject line type | % More likely to open | Makes no difference (%) | % Would ignore |
|---|---|---|---|
| An offer | 77% | 14% | 8% |
| Personalised (name/company name) | 71% | 22% | 6% |
| A question | 69% | 19% | 12% |
| Intriguing/mystery | 64% | 22% | 14% |
| Topical/trend/current affairs | 64% | 26% | 10% |
| Time-sensitive/urgent | 60% | 17% | 24% |
| Humorous | 59% | 25% | 16% |
| Shocking/alarmist | 47% | 22% | 32% |
Cold email subject line type and likelihood to open
Cold email subject line type and likelihood to open- Reader Note:
- Across the eight subject-line types, the share saying they would be more likely to open runs: an offer 77%, personalised with a name or company name 71%, a question 69%, intriguing or mysterious 64%, topical 64%, time-sensitive or urgent 60%, humorous 59% and shocking or alarmist 47%. The 32% is a different column — the share who said they would ignore the email — and it is the highest in that column, against 8% for an offer. So a shocking subject line is not simply weaker; it is the one that actively loses readers. These are stated preferences from the commissioned survey of senior B2B decision-makers, not open rates anyone measured.
- Evidence:
- Stated intention
- Vendor interest:
- High — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
- Sample:
- Survey: 442 senior B2B decision-makers (self-reported). Also draws on ~126M emails / 25M multichannel touchpoints and a 650,000-email 2025 send corpus for the message-pattern analysis, plus 2025 campaign benchmark data (lead rates by company size/industry).
Reader Note:
Evidence:
Vendor interest:
Sample:Good for
Reading the mood, and deciding what to test yourself.
Not for
- Predicting what people will actually do. Intentions and behaviour come apart.
- This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
- This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
- The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.
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