Whoever deals with email marketing – everyone knows that getting the email delivered to one’s mailbox is a whole alchemy. The step number two is to make the email subject interesting enough so it’s opened, and the text interesting enough in order to make the user read and act on it. But what about emojis in an email subject – is it worthy?

While it’s clear that emojis do catch the attention – do they improve the open rate? This is what the Search Engine Journal and Shelley Walsh researched, and the study brought some interesting findings. The studied sample was 110.000 persons and a total of 3,9 million unique emails (Newsletter from the Search Engine Journal). The result? Emails with Emojis in the subject were opened in average 6 % less as opposed to those with no emojis.

The open rates varied also depending on the position of the emojis. If placed at the start of the subject – the open rate was lower than if placed at the end of the subject. One interesting finding – in case such email was opened, the CTR war higher, on the other hand, the unsubscribe rate of the emoji-subject emails was 40 % higher.

Such emails were also more often marked as spam. Given these results, there seems to be little to no benefit in using emojis in email subjects. This was also confirmed by the recent Nielsen Norman Group, that came to the same conclusion. Therefore it’s advisable to bet on a creative and to the point text, instead of using emojis.