Pre-Header: A New Look

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The Pre-Header is the set of magic words that appear next to your subject line in your inbox, and sometimes it even represents the text that will make your newsletter open. So let's see together how to use it optimally to improve your campaigns and ensure that, among all the emails your recipients receive, it's yours that will be opened?



Make your newsletter the first one opened



Following the elements that usually appear in a classic email, you find the pre-header, this is a line of text that appears next to the subject line in your recipients' inbox which previously was the text that automatically appeared germany telegram phone number list at the top in the campaign, which was usually the first text of the email itself. With the new pre-header feature, ActiveTrail allows you to change it!



Changing a pre-header - an ActiveTrail feature



The default preheader
If you don't set a preheader, you need to know what you're going to see in the header by default. In this specific case, the preheader will be, as its name suggests, the first text that appears in your campaign and is usually one of the following: the link to the web version of the campaign; the text that appears when your email is not displayed correctly; or the Alternative Text (alt) that you provide for the images that you will put at the top of your campaign.

The default preheader



Let's assume that most email service providers (ISPs) will display HTML code as they see fit, this default behavior seems logical, but you don't necessarily have to comply with this state of affairs.

Links and/or useful information are one approach to using the available space in the preheader. Keep in mind that after a while, people may ignore this information especially if the text you chose and that appears in your subscribers' inboxes acts as an indiscernible link or a label that is not related to the subject of the email.

Conversely, the preheader, which was very functional in the past as is, can be used to help you increase the open rates of your campaigns. That's why we at ActiveTrail recommend using this feature as a short subhead that briefly describes the content of the campaign .



Using Preheaders as Subtitles
Since preheaders are typically visible in inbox preview windows, like in Gmail, for example, they can serve as a subheading for your campaign that represents to your subscribers what they can expect to see in the email. The content of a preheader, like the content of the campaign itself, should be relevant to your recipients and the type of campaign they’re expecting. There are a few ways to make this work.

Today, at ActiveTrail, in the campaign settings, you are given the option to be able to set the preheader, so you don't have to worry about touching the body of your campaign. However, you need to make sure that your subheader/preheader is long enough, otherwise some of the text in the body of your campaign may also be visible.



Each campaign has its own header
Every campaign is different and therefore every header will be different. With a little thought, and without increasing your workload, you can tailor your preheader to a specific recipient or group. For example, you can avoid unnecessary SPAM complaints by sending new subscriber campaigns with preheaders written to remind them when and where they signed up for your campaign. Using ActiveTrail's automation scenarios and dynamic groups, you can send different headers to different groups in a single campaign.

You can take this mindset even further by creating a more captivating pre-header. For example, if some recipients are reluctant to open one of your campaigns, perhaps you should try to encourage them to start reading your emails again by using a more attractive pre-header with a call to action so that your recipients are tempted to open the email!

The possibilities are endless. All you have to do is carefully try out different preheaders and find the one that works best for your subscribers.



Positioning
We have already mentioned that preheaders are usually displayed in preview or preview windows. So you should think about its positioning. Preheaders are often centered. This is a strange convention since preview windows do not always show the upper parts of emails. For example, in Thunderbird and Hotmail, recipients can use a vertical preview window, so that only the upper left part of the campaign is displayed. If the preheader is center aligned, it may well not be displayed at all.

Similarly, preheaders are displayed differently on different screens. On desktop screens, the preheader is displayed in its entirety, or almost, while on other screens, even email subject lines may be cut off. Therefore, you will need to take this into account when creating your preheader.

Also, consider using short sentences. Instead of a long redirect to the web version of your campaign, you can stick with a short sentence like “Your email isn’t displaying properly? Click here.” If you keep your text short, you may be able to pack several additional elements into your preheader and get more out of it.



Inspiration for your pre-header
To round things out, here are a number of pre-headers that will help you understand how these elements appear on different screens and their impact when they appear in your subscribers' inboxes:

For example, in an inbox on a desktop computer: