Subject Line Tactics You Haven’t Tried Yet | Bathroom Break #96

Summary

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The Marketing Millennials – Bathroom Break #96

Episode Title: Subject Line Tactics You Haven’t Tried Yet
Hosts: Daniel Murray & Jay Schwedelson
Date: February 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

This laid-back but insight-packed “Bathroom Break” mini-episode invites listeners to supercharge their email marketing campaigns by testing fresh, unconventional subject line tactics. Daniel Murray (The Marketing Millennials) and email expert Jay Schwedelson (Do This, Not That Podcast & subjectline.com) trade actionable, battle-tested tips for standing out in crowded inboxes. Their challenge: try what the “best practices” crowd ignores—sometimes bordering on what AI, or your inner critic, might never dare. Throughout, they blend expert-level hacks with playful banter, pop culture, and personal anecdotes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Subject Lines Still Matter

“If you don’t get your emails opened, who cares what's in your email?”
— Jay Schwedelson [02:10]

• Opens precede clicks—if nobody sees your content, the rest doesn’t matter.
• Despite automation and AI, subject lines require regular, real experiments—new tactics, new results.

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2. Unconventional Subject Line Tests

A. ALL CAPS—Break “Old Rules”

“I’ve been doing all caps, and it’s actually beating the test of no caps by like 3 or 4 percentage points.”
— Daniel Murray [02:55]

• Defying fears of spam folders, Daniel sees meaningful lifts using all-uppercase subject lines.
• Jay adds, this “over 50% caps = spam” myth is outdated; test both extremes.

B. Recognizable Emojis

• Consistently using the same emoji in every email helps build inbox recognition, especially for newsletters.

“You show up in the inbox every single time and have a recognizable emoji… see if it works for your brand.”
— Daniel Murray [03:17]

C. Cap-sing One Word

• Capitalizing a single strategic word (e.g., “This ONE tip”) draws attention and boosts opens.

“Capitalizing one of the words, like ‘this ONE tip’ and capitalize one—things like that I’ve been testing a lot.”
— Daniel Murray [03:29]

D. Minimal/No Capitalization

“The reverse, which is no capitalization, not a single word capped… AI would never tell you to do.”
— Jay Schwedelson [04:19]

• Try subject lines with no caps at all—anything that pattern-interrupts, or looks “handwritten/real.”

E. Pattern Interruption

“If you can get some sort of pattern interruption moment with your subject line, it really does help… get that millisecond pause.”
— Jay Schwedelson [04:37]

• Use lines like: “Wait, this worked?” or “OK. This surprised me.”—unusual phrasing that stops the scroll.
• Mimics the “social scroll” attention-getting techniques of platforms like Instagram or TikTok.

F. Numbers at the Start

“Your tip that you’ve always talked about: adding a number at the beginning works like a charm every single time.”
— Daniel Murray [05:20]

• Example: “5 Tips to Do This,” “2026 Trends You Need”—numbers create clarity and urgency.

G. Pop Culture & Direct Relevance

• Reference current moments or directly call out your audience (e.g., “Marketers: Don’t Miss This,” or “2026 Marketing Playbook”)

“If you signify the audience, it’s super valuable to add in your subject line.”
— Daniel Murray [05:57]

H. “Accidental Internal Reveal”

“We forgot to end this.”
— Jay Schwedelson [06:05]

• Write as if the email content is a behind-the-scenes mistake or secret—“the pricing team is gonna hate this,” evokes an “insider” feeling that drives curiosity.

I. Reverse Psychology

“Not for advanced marketers” or “Ignore this if your conversions are strong.”
— Jay Schwedelson [06:36]

• Prompt opens by subtly antagonizing your target audience—no one wants to be left out.

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3. Curiosity Over Clarity

“I see subject lines all the time where I know what your email is about. Why am I going to open this?... Give me something that I’m curious about.”
— Daniel Murray [07:34]

• Avoid subject lines that reveal everything (“Check out this marketing case study about XYZ”).
• Instead, tease a cool stat or observation, cut off the sentence mid-thought, or stoke curiosity.

Example:

• Full context: “Case Study: How Acme Co. Grew Revenue.”
• Teaser: “This changed everything for Acme Co…”

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4. Half-Sentence Subject Lines

“Half-sentence subject lines do well. Like, literally cut it off in the middle of the thought and go. They absolutely crush it.”
— Jay Schwedelson [08:25]

• Abrupt endings drive the urge to learn “what’s next?”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Pattern-interruption magic:
  “What you really want to think about is what is the type of subject line that AI would never tell you to do?”
  — Jay Schwedelson [04:11]

• Jay, on accidental reveals:
  “You’re basically saying, oh my God, we were supposed to end that. We didn’t end it… this accidental reveal crushes it in subject lines.”
  — Jay Schwedelson [06:13]

• Daniel, on curiosity vs. clarity:
  “Give them a little peep of something… not the full serving in the subject line.”
  — Daniel Murray [07:56]

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Lighthearted Banter & Pop Culture Tangent

• The hosts riff on TV reboots, including “The Pit,” “Scrubs,” “The Office,” and the nerves around the upcoming “Harry Potter” reboot.
• Notable quip:
  “We should do a reboot of this podcast.”
  — Daniel Murray [10:08]

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Timestamps – Important Segments

• [02:43] – Daniel’s recent winning subject line tests (ALL CAPS, emojis, one-word caps)
• [03:49] – Jay debunks all-caps myth; pattern interruption explained
• [05:00] – Daniel on numbers, pop culture, direct audience signals
• [06:00] – Jay on “Accidental Internal Reveal” and reverse psychology
• [07:20] – Daniel on never revealing the full content in a subject line
• [08:25] – Jay on half-sentence subject lines and curiosity
• [09:04] – Banter about TV reboots, nostalgia, and marketing parallels

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Summary: The Key Takeaways

• Dare to break the mold. Use ALL CAPS, no caps, or a single capped word for a noticeably different inbox presence.
• Pattern interruption, numbers, and pop culture references work.
• Add curiosity—never give away the punchline in your subject line or preheader.
• “Accidental” internal reveals offer an authentic, behind-the-curtain feel.
• Reverse psychology can trigger opens by betting on your audience’s desire not to be excluded.
• Continuously test wild ideas, even those AI would write off.

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For More:

• Follow Daniel Murray for more marketing ideas: Twitter | LinkedIn
• Check out Jay Schwedelson’s podcast: [Do This, Not That For Marketers]
• Engage with The Marketing Millennials community on LinkedIn and Instagram

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Listener homework: Try one wild subject line this week—bonus points if you use reverse psychology or an “accidental” reveal. Track your open rates, and don’t forget to let Daniel and Jay know how it goes!

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to a new special series called the Bathroom break. That extra 10 minutes you either have to listen to marketing tips or use the bathroom. Or both. But I don't recommend both. But that's your choice.

[A]

This collab is going to be super fun. We have Daniel Murray from the Marketing Millennials and me, Jay Schwetelson from the do this not that podcast and subjectline.com each episode in the series we are going to go over quick tips about different marketing top topics. And if you want to be in the bathroom, fine, just don't tell us about it. Thanks for checking it out. We are back for the Bathroom Break. This is Jay Schwedelson from Do this. Not that. I'm here with the ultimate marketing millennial, Daniel Murray. We're going to be talking about subject line tests you haven't tried. But before we do that, Daniel, speaking about stuff we haven't tried, you got a, you got a kid, a little baby. Are you not like watching TV these days? And are you watching any reality shows or you watching Landman? What is on Daniel's list of non sports related TV right now?

[B]

I think you just like reminded me Landman existed again. But right now, pretty much nothing. I watched, I, I did watch tennis like two days ago.

[A]

That's wrongly. I said non sports you bro.

[B]

But Landman, I've watched Landman. I w. Pit. The pit. The pit is great. Pitt.

[A]

Here's the problem with the pit. Let me ask you about this. So the Pitts, the medical drama with Noah Wiley, whatever. And it's like one hour in real time. It's these medical show. It's very intense. So the problem is when I watch that show, it stresses me out. I cannot relax watching that show. Do you watch it and you're like, oh yeah, this is nice.

[B]

I don't watch it. Like this is nice or not. This is not nice. I just watch it because it's just, I think it kind of reminds me of like 24 back in the day. Do you remember the show Pony Bar? Yeah. Bring back the hourly. What's happening in a show? I think that's, that's Kiefer Sutherland.

[A]

What happened to that dude? I think he's also. Is he brothers with Charlie Sheen? I think he is. Or do I have that wrong? I have no idea. I think I'm right. Who cares? Let's get into the topic of the day. The topic of the day is, you know, people say, oh, it doesn't matter. If you get a lot of people opening up your email it's all about the click. Well, I don't agree. If you don't get your emails opened, who cares what's in your email, whether you're a business market or consumer market or nonprofit? And there's always new subject line tests to try, and we're always trying the most random, weird stuff. So, Daniel, do you want to hit some of your favorite recent ones you've been trying or you want me to start going down?

[B]

I could start with 1. 1. One thing that I've been trying that has worked really well is all capsing the subject line.

[A]

You're doing that?

[B]

Yeah, it's working really well. It's like, kind of scary in the inbox, but I. I've been doing all caps, and it's actually beating the test of no, like, no cast by like 3 or 4% percentage point. So that's really good. I still solely believe that if you have an emoji in every email, people recognize who you are. So if. If you're doing something like a newsletter and you have that and you show up in the inbox every single time and have a recognizable emoji, you will show up every single time. And that. So that's another thing that test. See if it works for your brand. I also truly believe in capsing one word in. So, like, not only having, like a flat title case thing, you capitalize one of the words like this one tip and capitalize one, things like that. I've been testing a lot, but I know you have. You're the subject line guy. So let's.

[A]

Well, first off, I think it's very important for everyone to hear about the capitalization, because it used to be believed that if more than 50% of your subject line was all capital letters, that it would cause you to go the junk folder or spam folder, whatever. And that really is not the case anymore. I'm not saying that every email you send out should have every letter should be capitalized, but if you haven't tested, like what Daniel said, all caps for every letter in your subject line. That's a test. Also the reverse, which is no capitalization, not a single word capped. Because what you really want to think about is what is the type of subject line that AI would never tell you to do? And no capitalization, all capitalization are great examples of that. I'll tell you one that we've been doing a lot that's been working really well, which is this idea of pattern interruption. Pattern interruption, meaning like you're talking to your subject line regardless of what audience you're marketing to, it would say something like, wait, this worked, question mark or okay, dot this surprised me. And it's this idea when they're doing that social scroll in their inbox, if you can get some sort of pattern interruption moment with your subject line, it really does help to. And that's what you're trying to do. Get that millisecond pause and it could radically change the number of people opening up your emails.

[B]

Yeah, I did this when I. I've done things that like this changed the game, dot, dot, dot, and things like that. I also think, I mean, your tip that you've always talked about adding a number in this at the beginning works like a charm every single time. If you add like five tips to do this, five this to do this, it might be a little late, but I still think adding 20, 26 and some subject lines, if it's still going, it might have like a month or two more of that. That's another thing to start testing. Also, I truly believe that we talk about this all the time in the pod. But relevancy of doing something like, either it's a pop culture moment. You do that with like pop culture moment or relevancy putting marketers or marketing tip or brand marketers or brand playbook or something where it signifies like you are the audience is super valuable to add in your subject line.

[A]

Yeah, I'll give you a few other ones that we've been testing that sound so random. And you're like, really? I'm gonna do that? Yeah, that's called marketing. And one of them is this idea of the accidental internal reveal. What do I mean by that? Where we'd say something like, let's say you have a consumer sale, it might say something like, we forgot to end this. And you're basically saying, oh my God, we were supposed to end that. We didn't end it. But you're letting the person in on it. Or the pricing team is gonna hate this. Where it's this insider view which is not real, but it sounds sort. And this accidental reveal crushes it in subject lines. And another one that we like a lot is kind of reverse psychology with your target audience. Meaning that let's say you are marketing people that think that they are advanced marketers. Right. You literally have your subject line say, not for advanced marketers and not for affluent investors. If things are already working, skip this. Ignore this if your conversions are strong. Basically, it's the reverse. Like, wait a minute, I'm an advanced marketer. I'm Going to check this out. If you can use reverse psychology with the target embedded into it. It's all in the subconscious. But that person gets slightly annoyed. They don't even realize it and they're opening it up to check it out.

[B]

Anything with the psychology driven things are going to work. And I also always think about not giving away what my email is about in the subject line. I think so many people give away what their email is about ahead. Like I hate saying like oh, check out this marketing case study about this. And it's I don't want to open that. Give them a little peep of something that might be in the email. That is in the email that has a cool stat or cool something that at least has that curiosity edge to get them to open. So many people. I see subject lines all the time where I know what your email is about. Why am I going to open this? It's just good. You're wasting my time with that subject line. If you want me to open it, give me something that I'm curious about or reverse psychology or play the game that with numbers or specificity or I I think too many people give away. They also give it away in the pre header too. You can't give away what your email is about. You want them to. You can give a taste of what it is but not the full serving in the subject line.

[A]

Yeah. And that's also why I think half sentence subject lines do well. Like literally cut it off in the middle of the thought and go. They absolutely crush it. Because people just want to know what's going to be on, what's going to be in there. Speaking about what's going to be on. Let's get back to important TV shows. How do you feel about like reboots of shows? Like you probably don't care because you probably didn't watch the original one. But scrubs the medical show is coming back. Like this coming week is coming back. Whatever. How do you or Gilmore Girls made a redo like a will Bob, look at you. You have an instant negative reaction to the reboot on Gilmore Girls. Are you anti reboots?

[B]

I'm anti reboots of a show that like I think I'm so scared about the Harry Potter reboot of a TV show. I'm super scared that this is going to go over so badly. Reboots of shows. They sometimes could work. But remember like Heroes did a reboot and it was horrible. Heroes was so good and they just stopped. I'm trying to think of a show that actually had a pretty good reboot. That. What show could you think about? That actually had a pretty good reboot. That came back pretty strong. I can't think of it.

[A]

I think the Karate Kid, it was more of a reboot. It was really a pull from the movie into a TV show that was pretty good. I will say the most recent one, the Office. The TV show. The Office had a reboot, sort of called the Paper. The Paper's terrible. It's an unwatchable show. So for the most part, it's hard to go. It's hard to go back again.

[B]

People are so nostalgic to the first thing that they watch that when you do a reboot, you have to make it so great. Otherwise.

[A]

We should do a reboot of this podcast.

[B]

What should we talk about? The reboot of the what's after the bathroom Ray? What happens after the bathroom.

[A]

After the bathroom break is. I just threw up. Amazing. Well, once again, we've done it all on the show. Leave Daniel a review. He misses getting great reviews from everybody on whatever platform you list on. Give the marking Millennials review and keep it real. Daniel, come on, man. I gotta get back to work. Get out of there. All right, while he's still in there. This is Jay. Check out my podcast, do this, not that, for Marketers. Each week we share really quick tips on stuff that can improve your marketing and hope you give it a try. Oh, here's Daniel. He's finally out.

[B]

Back from my bathroom break. This is Daniel. Go follow the Market Millennials podcast, but also tune into this series. It's once a week, the Bathroom Break. We talk about marketing tips that we just spew out. And it could be anything from email, subject line to any marketing tips in the world. We'll talk about it. Just give us a a shout on LinkedIn and tell us what you want to hear. Peace out.

[A]

Later,