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200+ Ready-made holiday email subject lines to improve your open rates

Kelsey Johnson
Woman holding a gift

It’s that time again — Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas… Marketing your business around the holidays is non-negotiable — and can be particularly effective with the right email subject line. 

Every holiday is an excuse to run a promotional deal, launch and sell new products, and check in with your customers. People are expecting to hear from your business — so you better jump on it!

Effective holiday emails aren’t one-size-fits-all. The success of your email is directly related to the holiday, your customers, and what you sell. A costume company will have a lot more success with a Halloween email than a consulting firm. But a good subject line can help them both.

There are 2 main types of emails to send on every holiday: promotional or educational.

1. Send a promotional email to make a direct sale. Promotional emails could include teasers, discounts, coupons, new and relevant products, or a storewide sale.

Promotional emails are best when they’re simple and to-the-point, like this teaser holiday discount email from Sonos:

2. Send an educational email to build a relationship with your audience. Give your customers and prospects industry news, useful local information, store updates, holiday music playlists, or other helpful information that isn’t directly tied to a sale.

This email from fitness app FitOn offers a fun challenge and recipes for Halloween:

If you have something to sell this holiday — sell it! If you want to have a sale — do it! Otherwise, still send an email with helpful information — your customers will love it!

With that in mind, here are 200+ ready-made holiday email subject lines for your sales / ecommerce emails and also educational emails.

Jump to the holiday subject lines you need today:

Black Friday

Cyber Monday

Christmas

Halloween

Thanksgiving

What makes a good holiday subject line?

More than any other time of year, you will compete for your audience’s attention during holidays — especially holidays with high sales numbers.

Keep that in mind when deciding on a subject line. Here are a few general best practices:

Lastly, look at the emails stacked in your own inbox. What stands out to you? Use similar words, length, and tone to the subject lines that you find yourself drawn to.

Related: Email Subject Line Best Practices to Get More Opens

Black Friday email subject lines 

Black Friday promos are a must for any business. Whether you sell potential Christmas presents or software, everyone and their mom expects you to offer a discount the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Got a winning idea for your Black Friday promo? Great! Find a few catchy email subject lines to make sure your audience sees your promo in the crowd.

If you’re not sure what to offer, try starting with a subject line first — then hammer out the details. Either way, make sure you follow our guidelines for promoting Black Friday and Cyber Monday with an email marketing campaign.

The key to a good Black Friday email and its subject line is brevity. Keep it short and get to the point: What’s the discount, what products does it apply to, and when does it end?

This is an excellent example of simplicity in a Black Friday email from Onsen:

Towels? 30% off? Sitewide? Sold! I’m clicking that Shop the Sale button just to see what they offer.

If you sell physical products, it’s a common practice to offer free shipping too. That way your customers can get all their shopping done from home without penalty.

Okay, let’s get to the good stuff: Your Black Friday Weekend email subject lines. Note: You won’t see any newsletter subject lines in this list. Black Friday is all about promotions — it’s not the time for education.

Black Friday email subject lines for ecommerce

Teaser

Sneak peek

Countdown

Launch your promotion

Resend your promotion

Subject line emojis to help you get that extra sale:

🚨
💥
⏱/⏰
🖤
🤑
🏃
🎁
🛍️
🛒
💰 
💵 
💸 
💳
⚫
📣

Cyber Monday email subject lines

In a time when more people are working remotely, and many are still uncomfortable shopping in person, Cyber Monday is a big day for sales. In 2021, buyers spent $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday alone. So make sure you have an ecommerce sale running, and be sure to promote it via email.

Here are some plug-and-play subject lines to hype up your Cyber Monday specials:

Pre-Cyber Monday email

Day-of Cyber Monday email

Send more people to your ecommerce store with these emojis:

💻
👨‍💻/👩‍💻
✅
💰/💵
👜

Christmas email subject lines

Whether you’re running a special promotion, or just want to send a little holiday cheer, don’t miss the second most lucrative opportunity to sell to your audience — when everyone is buying presents.

Let’s start with a checklist for Christmas email subject line success:

  1. Highlight your offers: Everyone loves savings. If you’re running a special sale, make sure to highlight it in your subject line.
  2. Understand your subscribers’ pain points: Who are they shopping for this season? Are they strapped for time? What do they need help with this season?
  3. Bring the holiday cheer: You can include (not overused) puns, classic Christmas and Hanukkah references, and/or emojis.
  4. Use the following power words: Now, You/Your, Thanks, New, Easy, and Free. Dynamically enter the subscriber’s name, too!

Related: The most powerful words to use in your email campaigns

Inspiring holiday email subject line examples

Get inspired by these holiday email subject lines from real, recognizable brands:

Naughty 😈 and nice 😇 Christmas subject lines

In general, positive subject lines are better than negative ones. Most companies want to be associated with positivity.

But this Christmas, we’re urging you to think outside the box with our naughty and nice list. Nice subject lines to promote positivity and naughty ones that are provocative or nod to a naughty Christmas character.

😇 Nice subject lines

😈 Naughty subject lines

Halloween email subject lines

Businesses that sell halloween costumes and decorations should seek out ecommerce promotional email subject lines this time of year. In-person pumpkin farms, mazes, and haunted houses should send teasers, ticket sales, and event time/location information. And if you sell candy, you better make sure everyone knows it!

All other businesses should still be sending an educational Halloween newsletter. Here’s what yours could include:

Here’s are a few of my favorite eye-catching subject lines from past years:

They’re direct, to the point, short, and engaging.

Oh dear, this local liquor store went cliche and I’m not a fan:

Check out our list of read-made subject lines to inspire your Halloween email this year. Simply copy-and-paste one, or modify it for your business content and products.

Halloween email subject lines for ecommerce

Halloween email subject lines for your newsletter

Use these Halloween emojis to give your subject lines some magic:

🎃
👻
🕸
🕷
🍫/🍬
🧛🏻‍♀️
🏚️
💀/☠️
😳
😱

Thanksgiving email subject lines

For Americans stateside or abroad, Thanksgiving is a heartfelt holiday. It’s also a day everyone has off — and most people have some time in the day to check their email. Black Friday weekend comes the next day (see our next section), but any business with U.S. customers should also send out an email specifically for Thanksgiving.

Companies that sell food, alcohol, or decorations will want to send several promotional emails — all with striking subject lines since there’s competition in inboxes. If you have an Etsy store selling anything for a table setting, house decor, or food prep, make sure to send emails promoting everything you’ve got. Sell clothing? Everyone needs a cute Thanksgiving outfit that has some give around the waist.

Is your business completely unrelated to Thanksgiving? Simply say Happy Thanksgiving, and maybe send out some tips and tricks for leftovers, cleaning, or what to watch during the day. Here’s some newsletter ideas:

You can have some fun with a Thanksgiving email — use one of the gifs available in our Fall Gif Guide. This one is my favorite:

Thanksgiving email subject lines for ecommerce

Thanksgiving email subject lines for your newsletter

Emojis that are the gravy on your subject line:

🦃
🤤
💕
👪
🍁/🍂
🥔
🥕
🌽
🍗
🍽️/🍴
🏈
🧣

Need more subject line ideas

These subject line ideas are meant to get your creative juices flowing. Maybe you can take one of these subject lines and modify it to fit with the content of your email.

Or you can use AWeber’s AI’s subject line generator.

You don’t have to worry about providing the perfect instructions to get a subject line that aligns with your email copy. The benefit of AWeber’s AI subject line generator is that it provides you perfectly matched subject lines with your email and it follows email marketing best practices. The most difficult part of this subject line generator is trying to pick which one to use.

So sign up for AWeber and watch your open rates grow with better subject lines.

Keep reading:

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  • Email personalization: Using dynamic content to speak to your audience
  • Email automation best practices for highly engaging campaigns
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