Marketing & Communications

June 25, 2026

Recipe: Grab attention with Dynamic Subject Lines

# Recipes for success

# Marketing

Makes: A highly relevant inbox experience where different segments of your audience see different subject lines from a single email campaign.

Make your emails more effective by creating a personalised inbox experience without having to build multiple bespoke campaigns.

Rather than sending the same subject line to everyone, you can tailor the "hook" based on what you know about each customer's behaviour. For example, customers who regularly attend comedy performances could see a comedy-focused subject line, while dance attenders see a dance-focused message. The content inside the email can remain exactly the same.

What you need

Spektrix auto tags synced to Dotdigital Data Fields

Multiple subject line variations tailored to different audience segments

A Dotdigital email campaign

Time required

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

What will this help me achieve?

Increase relevance without increasing workload: one email campaign can deliver multiple personalised experiences.

Make better use of customer data: turn attendance history and preferences into meaningful messaging.

Improve campaign performance: more relevant subject lines help drive stronger open rates and engagement.

Create a foundation for further personalisation: the same audience insights can be used to tailor email content and calls to action.

Concepts we’ll be using

Dynamic Content: Use customer data to show different subject line variations to different audiences from a single campaign.

Auto tags: Tags applied automatically to customer records based on their purchasing behaviour.

Dotdigital Data Fields: Store synced audience information so it can be used to personalise your campaigns.

Prep

Step 1: Identify Your Regular Attenders

Create one or more auto tags in your Dotdigital synced tag group that identify customers who regularly engage with a particular type of event.

This could be based on:

Genre (Comedy, Drama, Dance, Opera, Classical Music, etc.)

Event type (Workshops, Family Events, Talks, Screenings, etc.)

Frequency of attendance

The exact criteria will vary between organisations. For example:

Attended 3 or more Comedy events in the last 12 months

Attended 5 or more Drama performances in the last 2 years

Booked 5 or more Family events in the last year

Step 2: Create Matching Data Fields in Dotdigital

Sync the auto tags by creating a Dotdigital data field for each tag that you want to use for personalisation.

Activate

Build Subject Line Variations

Create or open the email campaign where you want to try dynamic content in the subject line

On the campaign details page, use dynamic content to create multiple subject line variations based on the data fields created in the previous step.

Keep the variations simple and focused on the initial hook that appears in the inbox.

For example:

Audience	Subject Line
Comedy Regulars	New comedy nights just announced
Dance Regulars	Be first to discover our newest dance performances
Opera Regulars	Your next unforgettable opera awaits
Default	Explore the new season

You don't need dozens of variations. Three to five highly relevant options is often enough to significantly improve the relevance of your email.

More to explore

Once you’ve sent out your email campaign, you can evaluate its performance using the email campaign report in Dotdigital and then use the learnings to inform the dynamic content for your next email campaign.

Use Dynamic Content to Tailor Your Top CTA: Learn more about what motivates your customers to take action.

Group your Email Campaigns for Clearer Reporting: Get a deeper understanding of your email performance and the ways your customers interact by tagging and categorising your campaigns.