Why these emails got ~40% open rates

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We sent out 48 newsletters last year.

The top five all cleared the 39% open rate mark.

So I dug into what made them work so well 👀

Turns out there are four patterns our best emails followed.

And they work just as well for social hooks, cold emails, or any content where you need to stop the scroll.

Read on for our top emails, then my take on why they did so well.

Let's get into it…

1. Spiky content 🌵

Preview text: What Guy Fieri's frosted tips can teach you about thought leadership

Unique opens: 3,416 (42.38% open rate)

👉 Read it here

2. Spoiler alert...

Preview text: You're not going to hear back from that job board gig you just applied to

Unique opens: 3,370 (41.72% open rate)

👉 Read it here

3. Did HubSpot lose 80% of its traffic... deliberately?

Preview text: Yeah, kind of…

Unique opens: 3,215 (39.75% open rate)

👉 Read it here

4. How the smartest SEO I know is AI-proofing their career

Preview text: Blog posts, traffic, keywords... Jess Joyce is over them. Here's what she's doing instead...

Unique opens: 3,169 (39.01% open rate)

👉️ Read it here

5. How I've landed all my clients

Preview text: spoiler: cold pitches drove just 5 of 34

Unique opens: 3,164 (39.14% open rate)

👉️ Read it here

What our top-performing emails have in common

p.s. don’t write a newsletter? These takeaways will help you write juicier social hooks, too 👀

1. Promise access to insider info

Check these phrases out:

• "How I've landed all my clients"

• "The smartest SEO I know"

• "What Guy Fieri's frosted tips can teach you"

Each implies: I’m gonna let you in on a lil’ industry secret here…

Make your reader feel like they’ve just had an invite to the room where it happens.

2. Get specific

Numbers and concrete details show up in three of our top five emails:

• "80% of its traffic"

• "cold pitches drove just 5 of 34"

• Named expert → Jess Joyce

Specificity tells readers: this isn't just theory – it’s based on real-world experience or actual data.

That’s why you’re reading this, right? Because I’ve got the receipts, not talking out my arse.

3. Hot takes drive clicks

Our best performing newsletter of 2025 called it – folks love a spiky point of view 🌵

These phrases all take (or tease) a hot take:

• "You're not going to hear back from that job board gig"

• "Did HubSpot lose 80% of its traffic… deliberately?"

• "Blog posts, traffic, keywords… Jess Joyce is over them"

Which forces a reaction:

• “Nah, that can’t be right… can it?”

• “Finally, someone is saying it!”

• “Wtf are they on about?”

Which drives opens 🚀

4. The one-two punch

A formula that worked well for us last year was:

• Subject line → Grab their attention

• Preview text → Pique their curiosity

(Gotta leave those readers like 👇)

Three of our top five performers follow that pattern:

• Subject: Spiky content 🌵 → Preview: What Guy Fieri's frosted tips can teach you about thought leadership

• Subject: Spoiler alert… → Preview: You're not going to hear back from that job board gig you just applied to

• Subject: How I've landed all my clients → Preview: spoiler: cold pitches drove just 5 of 34

The subject line acts as “pattern interrupt”. Then the preview text follows up on the clickbait by teasing real value.

That's it, folks! Four patterns that drove 39%+ open rates.

Next up, I’ll be digging into the patterns behind my top-performing LinkedIn posts 👀

p.s. shoutout to Louise Linehan – I was inspired by her Ahrefs post (which was inspired by Amanda Natividad’s SparkToro post – insp-ception!

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