Copywriting That Converts

Every email you send is competing with 120 others in your subscriber’s inbox. The difference between the emails that get opened, read, and acted on and the ones that get deleted without a second thought comes down to one thing: the words you choose.

This chapter covers every layer of email copy, from the subject line that earns the open to the P.S. that clinches the click.

Subject Lines

Your subject line is the most consequential piece of copy you’ll write. 64% of people decide whether to open an email based on the subject line alone, and 45% factor in the sender name. That’s it. Your beautifully designed email, your killer offer, your perfectly segmented audience. None of it matters if the subject line doesn’t earn the open.

Length matters more than you’d think. Subject lines under 25 characters tend to produce the highest open rates. But here’s the nuance: lines between 25 and 35 characters tend to produce the highest conversion rates. The sweet spot for balancing both sits around 30 to 50 characters. Why the discrepancy? Shorter lines create curiosity and get opened, but slightly longer ones give enough context that the people who do open are more qualified and more likely to act.

For mobile, keep it under 30 characters if you can. Anything beyond that gets truncated on most phones, and with 60%+ of emails opened on mobile, that truncation point is your hard ceiling for making an impression.

Be specific, not clever. Treat your subject line like a newspaper headline, not a riddle. “3 ways to reduce your cart abandonment rate” will almost always outperform “You won’t believe this secret.” Specificity sets an expectation. Cleverness creates confusion.

Numbers work particularly well. They signal concrete, scannable value. “5 templates for your welcome series” tells the reader exactly what they’re getting.

Personalisation lifts opens by about 14%. Using a subscriber’s first name or referencing their recent behaviour in the subject line creates a pattern interrupt in a crowded inbox. But personalisation only works if the rest of the email delivers on the promise. a subject line that says “George, your custom report is ready” followed by a generic blast is worse than no personalisation at all, because you’ve broken trust.

Skip emojis in triggered emails. Campaign emails can benefit from a well-placed emoji (used sparingly), but data consistently shows that emojis underperform in triggered, automated emails like abandoned cart or browse abandonment sequences. These emails work because they feel personal and relevant. Emojis make them feel like marketing.

In campaign emails, avoid ‘you’ and ‘your’. This is counterintuitive. We’re taught to write in second person, to make it about the reader. But campaign-level testing shows that subject lines without ‘you’ and ‘your’ tend to outperform. The theory is that second person in subject lines triggers the reader’s “I’m being sold to” filter. Instead, try framing around the topic: “The welcome series that converts at 40%” rather than “How you can improve your welcome series.”

The Ben Settle approach. Ben Settle sends a daily email and rarely uses conventional subject lines. His approach is personality-driven curiosity. Short, cryptic, sometimes bizarre. “The vampire method.” “What my cat taught me about copywriting.” It works because his audience expects it and because each email delivers something genuinely interesting. The lesson isn’t to copy his style. It’s that subject lines are a contract with your audience, and that contract can take many forms.

Question vs statement subject lines produce mixed results. Some audiences respond better to questions (“Is your welcome series broken?”), others to statements (“Your welcome series is probably broken”). Test both for your audience rather than adopting a blanket rule.

Negative framing can outperform positive framing. “Don’t make this mistake with your email flows” can beat “How to improve your email flows.” This taps into loss aversion, a psychological principle we’ll cover shortly. People are more motivated to avoid a mistake than to achieve a gain.

The most famous subject line test of all time: during the 2008 Obama campaign, the email team tested dozens of subject line variants for fundraising emails. The winner? “Hey.” That single word raised $2.5 million more than the next best variant. The campaign raised over $500 million via email in total. The lesson isn’t that you should send “Hey” as your subject line. It’s that assumptions about what works are often wrong, and the only way to know is to test.

Preview Text

Preview text (also called preheader text) is the grey text that appears after the subject line in most email clients. It’s your subject line’s wingman.

Emails with intentional preheader text achieve an average 44.67% open rate, roughly 5 percentage points higher than emails without. That’s a meaningful lift for zero extra effort.

Keep your preview text under 50 characters. It should complement the subject line, not repeat it. If your subject line is “3 ways to reduce cart abandonment,” your preview text might be “Number 2 surprised our team.” Together, they create a complete pitch for opening.

If you leave the preview text blank, email clients will pull the first text they can find in your email body. Usually that’s “View this email in your browser” or an image alt tag. It looks sloppy and wastes prime real estate.

Write your subject line and preview text as a pair, not as an afterthought.

Technically, preview text goes in a hidden span or div at the very top of your email HTML, before any visible content. Some ESPs provide a dedicated preview text field, which makes this easier. If yours doesn’t, you’ll need to add it manually. A common technique is to follow your preview text with a string of zero-width spaces and non-breaking spaces. This pads the preview so email clients don’t pull in additional body text after your intended preview.

Different email clients display different preview text lengths. Gmail shows about 90 characters on desktop but only about 40 on mobile. Apple Mail on iPhone shows roughly 90 characters. Outlook on desktop is generous at around 50 to 100 depending on the version. The safe approach is to front-load your key message in the first 40 characters and treat anything beyond that as a bonus.

Body Copy Structure

You’ve earned the open. Now you have about 8 seconds before the reader decides whether to keep going or hit delete.

Put the most important thing first. The inverted pyramid structure from journalism works beautifully in email. Lead with the key message or the most compelling hook, then provide supporting detail, then close with your call to action. Don’t build up to the point. Start with it.

Short paragraphs. One idea per paragraph. In email, a paragraph is one to three sentences. sometimes just one word. Your reader is scanning, not settling in for a novel. White space between paragraphs gives the eye places to rest and makes the email feel faster to read.

Laura Belgray puts it perfectly: read like a person, not a brand. Use “I” instead of “we” whenever possible. Write the way you’d talk to a friend who happens to be interested in your topic. This doesn’t mean being unprofessional. It means being human. The brands and creators with the highest engagement rates are almost always the ones who sound like actual people.

Positive language increases conversion by about 22%. This doesn’t mean avoiding problems or pain points (PAS framework, coming shortly, is built on exactly that). It means the overall tone of your email should leave the reader feeling capable and optimistic. Frame your CTA around what they’ll gain, not what they’ll lose.

Drip email sequences massively outperform one-off sends. Drip emails see 80% higher open rates and 3x more clicks than single sends. This makes sense. A well-constructed sequence builds context, trust, and momentum. Each email earns the next open. We covered flow design in Chapter 4, but the copy lesson is clear: think in sequences, not single emails.

Read your email out loud before sending. This is the simplest and most effective editing technique I know. If you stumble over a sentence when reading aloud, rewrite it. If you sound like a press release, rewrite it. If you wouldn’t say it to someone sitting across from you at a coffee shop, rewrite it. Reading aloud catches awkward phrasing, overly long sentences, and tone mismatches that silent reading misses.

Write your email, then cut it by 30%. First drafts are almost always too long. Go through and remove every sentence that doesn’t directly support your main point or move the reader toward your CTA. Remove qualifiers (“very,” “really,” “quite”). Remove throat-clearing openings (“I wanted to reach out to let you know that…”). Get to the point faster than feels comfortable. Your readers will thank you with their clicks.

The ‘one reader’ rule. Write every email as if it’s going to exactly one person. Not your list of 50,000. One person. Give that person a name if it helps. This mindset shift changes everything: your tone becomes more conversational, your examples become more specific, and your CTAs become more direct. Mass emails that feel personal outperform personal-feeling emails that read like mass communication.

Copywriting Frameworks

Frameworks give you a starting structure so you’re never staring at a blank page. Here are seven that I use and recommend, each suited to different situations.

AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

The classic. Grab attention with a strong opening line, build interest with relevant information, create desire by connecting features to benefits, and close with a clear action step. AIDA works best for promotional emails where you’re introducing an offer.

Example opening: “We just shipped the feature your support tickets have been asking for.” That’s your attention. Then interest: what the feature does. Then desire: what it means for the reader. Then action: try it now.

AIDA works well because it mirrors how people naturally process a decision. You notice something, you get curious, you want it, you act. The framework simply structures your email to match that process. The main risk with AIDA is spending too long on Attention and Interest without getting to the action. In email, you have limited attention. Move through the stages quickly.

PAS: Problem, Agitate, Solution

Name the problem your reader faces. Agitate it by making them feel the frustration, the cost, the pain of leaving it unsolved. Then present your solution. PAS is the most reliable framework for cold email and B2B, because it demonstrates that you understand the reader’s world before you pitch.

Example: “Your welcome series converts at 2%. (Problem.) That means for every 1,000 new subscribers, 980 never buy. Over a year, that’s tens of thousands in lost revenue from people who wanted to hear from you. (Agitate.) Here’s a 5-email welcome structure that consistently converts at 8-12%. (Solution.)”

BAB: Before, After, Bridge

Show the current state (before), paint the desired state (after), then position your product or service as the bridge between the two. BAB works brilliantly for case study emails and transformation stories.

Example: “Before: spending 15 hours a week on email marketing, manually segmenting lists, guessing at send times. After: automated flows generating 30% of total revenue, freeing up 12 hours a week. Bridge: here’s exactly how [Client] set it up.”

4Ps: Promise, Picture, Proof, Push

Promise a specific benefit. Paint a vivid picture of what life looks like with that benefit. Prove it with evidence (data, testimonials, case studies). Push to action with a clear CTA. The 4Ps framework works well for mid-funnel emails where trust is building but not yet established.

Example: “Promise: Get your first 100 subscribers in 30 days. Picture: Imagine waking up to new sign-ups every morning, people who want to hear from you. Proof: Sarah used this exact method and hit 100 subscribers in 22 days (here’s her full breakdown). Push: Download the 30-day plan now.”

Star-Story-Solution

Introduce a character (the star), tell their story (ideally one your reader relates to), and reveal your product as the solution. This framework excels in nurture sequences where you’re building connection over time. The star can be a customer, yourself, or even the reader.

The power of Star-Story-Solution is that it doesn’t feel like marketing. It reads like a story with a point. The reader gets emotionally invested in the star’s journey, and by the time you present the solution, they’re already leaning forward. Use this framework for customer case studies, founder stories, and any email where you want the reader to see themselves in someone else’s experience.

The Soap Opera Sequence (Andre Chaperon)

This is the most sophisticated email framework I know, and the one worth studying if you’re serious about email copywriting. Andre Chaperon developed it to create multi-email narratives that use cliffhangers and open loops to keep subscribers reading.

The structure across a sequence:

1. Set the stage. Introduce the setting, the character, the situation. End with a hook that makes the reader need to open the next email.
2. Backstory. Fill in context. How did this situation come to be? End with another open loop.
3. The turning point. Something changed. A discovery, a failure, a breakthrough. This is where tension peaks.
4. The hidden benefit. Reveal something unexpected. The solution that emerged from the turning point, and why it matters for the reader.
5. Urgency and CTA. Close the narrative loop and present the offer with genuine urgency.

Each email opens a loop that the next one closes, while simultaneously opening a new loop. It’s addictive to read, and the engagement data reflects it. Chaperon’s sequences regularly achieve 70%+ open rates deep into a sequence, where most marketers see steep drop-off after email two.

The 1-3-1 Newsletter Structure

For regular newsletters, this structure keeps things tight: one big story or insight (your main piece), three shorter items (links, tips, observations), and one closing thought or CTA. It gives the reader variety while maintaining a clear focal point. Most successful paid newsletters use some variation of this.

The beauty of 1-3-1 is that it respects the reader’s time while giving them enough variety to find something relevant. If the main story doesn’t resonate, one of the three shorter items might. The closing CTA brings focus back to a single action. it’s a structure that feels generous without being overwhelming.

Choosing the Right Framework

No single framework is best for all situations. Here’s how I’d match them:

Promotional emails and product launches: AIDA or 4Ps. Welcome sequences: PAS or Commitment-building micro-CTA emails. Case studies and testimonials: BAB or Star-Story-Solution. Multi-email nurture sequences: Soap Opera Sequence. Regular newsletters: 1-3-1. Cold email and outbound: PAS.

The framework is a starting structure. Once you’ve written with a framework for long enough, you’ll start blending elements naturally. A PAS email with a Star-Story structure for the agitate section. An AIDA email with social proof woven through the interest section. That’s when frameworks go from helpful to invisible.

The Psychology Behind Email Copy

Good email copy isn’t just well-written. It’s built on an understanding of how people make decisions. Here are the psychological principles that underpin the best email marketing.

The Curiosity Gap (George Loewenstein)

Loewenstein’s information gap theory says that curiosity arises when we perceive a gap between what we know and what we want to know. Subject lines, open loops, and cliffhangers all exploit this gap. “The subject line strategy that increased our opens by 40%” creates a gap. Your brain wants to close it. The key is to always deliver on the other side. Creating a curiosity gap and then failing to satisfy it trains subscribers to stop opening.

Loss Aversion (Kahneman and Tversky)

People feel losses roughly twice as intensely as equivalent gains. This is one of the most well-documented findings in behavioural economics, and it has direct implications for email copy. “Don’t miss out on 20% off” is psychologically stronger than “Get 20% off.” “Don’t let your trial expire” outperforms “Renew your trial.” Use loss framing strategically, particularly for re-engagement, expiry, and abandonment emails.

Narrative Transportation

When readers become absorbed in a story, their resistance to persuasion drops significantly. This is why the Soap Opera Sequence works so well. When someone is transported into a narrative, they’re less likely to counter-argue or dismiss the eventual pitch. They’re emotionally invested. The practical takeaway: tell more stories in your emails. Customer stories, your own stories, hypothetical scenarios. Stories lower the drawbridge.

Commitment and Consistency (Robert Cialdini)

Once someone takes a small action, they’re significantly more likely to take a larger, consistent action. This is why welcome sequences that ask for micro-commitments (reply to this email, set a preference, download a free resource) produce higher eventual conversion rates. each small ‘yes’ primes the subscriber for the bigger ‘yes’ of purchasing. Structure your early emails to invite easy, low-stakes actions.

Social Proof

“Join 50,000 marketers who read this newsletter” works because it triggers a belonging need and provides evidence of value. If 50,000 people find this worth their time, it’s probably worth mine. Social proof is most effective when it’s specific (exact numbers, named companies, real testimonials with full names) and when the reference group is one the reader identifies with.

The Zeigarnik Effect

People remember uncompleted tasks more vividly than completed ones. This is the psychological engine behind open loops and cliffhangers. When you end an email mid-story (“I’ll tell you what happened next in tomorrow’s email”), the reader’s brain flags it as unfinished business. It nags at them. They’re primed to open the next email because their brain wants closure.

Practically, the Zeigarnik Effect explains why TV shows end on cliffhangers and why Andre Chaperon’s Soap Opera Sequence is so effective. But you don’t need a multi-email sequence to use it. Even within a single email, opening a loop early (“I’ll explain why this matters at the end”) keeps the reader scrolling.

Scarcity: Real vs Fake

Genuine scarcity works. Limited-time offers, limited-stock products, enrollment windows that actually close. these create real urgency and motivate action.

Fake scarcity destroys trust. Countdown timers that reset when you revisit the page. “Only 2 left!” on a digital product. “Doors closing forever!” when they reopen every quarter. Subscribers talk. They screenshot. They notice. And once they catch you manufacturing urgency, every future claim you make is suspect. Only ever use scarcity you can stand behind honestly.

CTAs That Work

Your call to action is where everything either converts or doesn’t. After all the work of earning the open, hooking the reader, and building desire, the CTA is the moment of truth.

Buttons outperform text links by about 27% in click-through rate. The reason is simple: buttons are visually distinct, obviously clickable, and easy to tap on mobile. That said, text links within body copy can feel more natural in text-heavy, personal-style emails. The best approach for many emails is to include both.

A single CTA produces 42% more clicks than multiple CTAs. Every additional choice you give the reader dilutes the power of each option. When possible, commit to one action you want the reader to take, and build your entire email around it.

Specific button text massively outperforms generic text. “Get my 20% discount” beats “Shop now.” “Download the template” beats “Click here.” “Start my free trial” beats “Learn more.” Specificity tells the reader exactly what will happen when they click, which reduces friction and increases confidence.

Chris Orzechowski teaches that your CTA should be the natural conclusion of your email’s argument. If your email has done its job, the reader should arrive at the CTA and think, “Obviously.” The CTA isn’t a pivot. It’s a destination the email has been walking toward the entire time.

Place your CTA both above the fold and below the main content. This dual placement produces roughly 35% more total clicks than a single CTA placement. Some readers are ready to act immediately. Others need to read the full email first. Serve both.

For cold email, interest-based CTAs massively outperform meeting requests. “Worth exploring?” or “Is this on your radar?” gets 2 to 3 times more replies than “Can we schedule a 15-minute call?” The softer ask reduces the perceived commitment and lowers the bar for response.

CTA colour matters, but not in the way most people think. There’s no universally “best” button colour. What matters is contrast. Your CTA button should be the most visually prominent element in your email. If your email uses blue throughout, a blue CTA button disappears. An orange or green button in the same email pops. Test colours, but test them in context, not in isolation.

First-person CTA copy consistently outperforms second-person. “Start my free trial” beats “Start your free trial.” “Get my discount” beats “Get your discount.” The theory is that first-person copy creates a sense of ownership before the click. The reader is mentally claiming the offer rather than being told about it. Multiple A/B tests across different industries confirm this pattern, with lifts typically in the 25 to 35% range.

The P.S. Line

The P.S. is one of the most-read parts of any email. Eye-tracking studies consistently show that readers scan from the top, skip to the bottom, and then decide whether to read the middle. Your P.S. catches the scanners.

Use the P.S. for one of three purposes: reinforcing your main CTA with a different angle, adding a secondary offer or piece of information, or injecting personality. Some of the best email marketers use the P.S. exclusively for personal, off-topic asides that build connection.

One marketer I follow shared this: “I added a plain-text P.S. to every email with a personal note. CTR went up 22%.” That’s not a controlled study, but it aligns with what I’ve seen. The P.S. humanises an email. It says, “Hey, I’m still here. This isn’t a bot.”

Add a P.S. to every promotional and newsletter email you send. It costs nothing and consistently lifts performance.

P.S. best practices: Keep it to one or two sentences. Don’t bury critical information in the P.S. that belongs in the body. Use it as a second chance to make your case, not as a dumping ground for things you forgot to include. And make the P.S. sound distinctly different from the rest of the email. If the body is polished and professional, let the P.S. be casual and personal. If the body tells a story, let the P.S. deliver the punchline.

Some marketers use the P.S. as a running feature. A weekly personal update, a book recommendation, a random observation. Subscribers start looking forward to the P.S. specifically, which means they’re scrolling past your CTA to get to it. That’s a good problem to have.

Simple Text vs Designed HTML

This is one of the most under-discussed decisions in email marketing. (A quick terminology note: what most marketers call “plain text” emails are actually HTML emails with minimal styling. True plain text is a different MIME type entirely, with no open tracking, no clickable links, and no formatting. When we say “plain text” in this section, we mean simple, minimally-styled HTML.)

Simple text emails tend to outperform in B2B, personal brands, and relationship-driven businesses. When your email looks like it was typed by a person and sent to one person, it gets treated differently. It lands in the Primary tab more often. It gets replied to more. It feels like correspondence, not marketing.

HubSpot ran tests and found that HTML emails with images actually decreased click-through rates compared to plain text versions. The designed emails looked polished, but the plain ones got more clicks.

Designed emails outperform for ecommerce, where product images are essential to the buying decision. You can’t sell a dress without showing the dress. If your email needs to showcase visual products, you need HTML.

The ‘designed plain text’ hybrid is where many smart marketers land. A clean template with minimal branding, primarily text-based, with perhaps a logo in the header and a styled CTA button. It looks intentional but doesn’t trigger the “this is marketing” filter in the reader’s brain. This is the right approach for most SaaS, education, and service businesses.

Heavy HTML tends to land in the Gmail Promotions tab. The more images, the more complex your HTML, the more likely your email ends up in Promotions rather than Primary. Worth noting though: there’s a growing view among email developers that the Promotions tab isn’t necessarily bad. Promotional emails often perform better there because users expect marketing content when they open that tab. When promotional emails slip into Primary, they can actually get marked as spam more often, because users expect correspondence there, not marketing. The real question is whether your email matches the context your reader expects.

Testing format across your flows. I’d suggest testing simple text vs designed HTML in at least three contexts: your welcome email (first impression, sets the tone), your best-performing promotional template (where you have the most data), and your abandoned cart first email (where personal feel matters most). You might find that different flows benefit from different formats. Your welcome email might perform better as plain text (warm, personal), while your promotional emails perform better with product images. That’s fine. Format isn’t a global decision. It’s a per-flow decision.

The text-to-link ratio. Regardless of format, be careful about the number of links in your email. Emails with excessive links (more than 5 to 7 unique links in a short email) can trigger spam filters and, more importantly, dilute your click data. Every link is a choice, and choices create friction. Keep your link count proportional to your email length, and ensure every link serves a clear purpose.

The fundamental principle: your email’s format should match the relationship you’re trying to build. If you’re the trusted advisor, write like one. If you’re the premium retailer, design like one.

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