What have we found to expand your email knowledge today?

Here are a few of our favourite links from across the email and business world, carefully curated just for you:

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We'll be discussing:​

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Very often, us email senders ponder our strategy because, at the end of the day, your emails need to be opened by your readers, don’t they?

We’re also told to optimise our sender names and audience trust (because that’s a big reason for driving opens).

We’re told to optimise our subject lines (but also, told subject lines mean nothing if a sender isn’t trusted, which is, on the surface, true).

We’re also told to send at specific times or optimise for when readers are in their inbox (hey, even we try do this).

But is there a single facet of the strategy that actually drives readers to open and read your emails?

Our curiousity prompted some research, so a couple of weeks back, we ran a poll on LinkedIn. One (seemingly) simple question with four options:

And, on the surface, it looked like a verdict. Sender name wins. Pretty much case closed.

Except it wasn't. And the comments made that very clear.

Jaina, an email pro and marketing mage came in with something that immediately made us pause:

That's a vote for context, not merely a vote for "sender name."

Then there's Kyle (newsletter operator, and someone who thinks about this stuff for a living:

So... both? Fair combination.

And then there's Robert from EmailToolTester, and all round email master, who added this interesting insight:

Here's what we were noticing: These are all email professionals who send solid emails. Smart, experienced people.

And none of them truly agreed. But, it’s not that any of them are wrong in any way, but speaks to different audience needs (and you’ll see where we’re going with this soon.

Eren, newsletter operator, founder of HeyNews and recent guest here, offered a framework that reframed the conversation:

The variable that "matters most" now shifts depending on the relationship stage.

A new subscriber doesn't know you yet? Essentially, your name carries no weight. They're evaluating the subject line and the send time. But give that same subscriber six months of consistent, valuable emails, and suddenly your name alone is the reason they open.

The relationship changes the equation. Which means there is no fixed equation.

This tracks with something Auroriele (B2B expert and upcoming guest) said simply and directly:

That trust didn't arrive on day one. It’s likely built email by email, open by open.

Devin, email wizard at Bitly and someone we look up to for his wisdom, pointed something out that cut through pretty much the whole debate:

He's right (while it's a little uncomfortable to sit with because we so often focus on the wrong stuff).

Each answer, taken to its logical extreme, collapses. Nobody opens every email from every sender, no matter what. Nobody opens every email that arrives at 10am on a Tuesday.

These variables don't operate independently. And more importantly, they don't operate in a vacuum.

And that’s where everything comes together, isn’t it?

Everything is important, BUT only if the right audience connects with them.

Honestly, we’ve personally been fairly sender-name oriented in how we consume email. At this point, we're almost ignoring subject lines from senders we trust (unless something really stands out).

But we're also scanning 350+ newsletters across multiple inboxes (suckers for punishment, we know).

Our relationship with email is not normal. Our inbox behaviour is not a benchmark.

And that's exactly the point…

Your audience is not you. It's not us. It's not Jaina, or Kyle, or Robert, or Eren.

It's the specific group of people you've attracted.

Through your content, your voice, your channel, your positioning. Their habits, their inbox context, their relationship with you.

These are the variables that actually determine what gets opened. Not a poll. Not a benchmark. Not a best-practices guide (unfortunately).

The sender name, the subject line, the send time, yes, these are levers. But levers only work if you understand the machine you're pulling them on.

And the real kicker? The one variable that ties all of this together is the one most senders spend the least time on. Not the subject line formula. Not the optimal send time. Not even the "from" name.

It's the audience itself.

The right question isn't "what drives opens?", rather “who am I sending to, and what do I actually know about them?”

Because once you understand your audience (how they found you, what they expect from you, where they are in their relationship with your emails) the other variables start to answer themselves.

Subject line strategy becomes clearer when you know what your readers respond to. Send time becomes easier when you've actually looked at your engagement patterns (not a generic "Tuesday 10am" guide). And your sender name starts to carry weight the moment your readers associate it with consistent value.

We're not done with this conversation. We’ve got some neat insights lined up into how to think about who you’re sending to.

But while we conjure that up:

Hit this link, fire over your thoughts on this one, and let us know what drives opens for your audience specifically (because we'd love to hear it).

Remember, the audience is the strategy. Everything else? That’s a variable, after all.

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Ever sent an email and your personalisation fields bomb out (because hey, we all have)?

Well, seems like Walmart Saratoga Springs had the same faux pas…

That’s okay, associate’s name - You’re still doing a great job 😉