Generate cold email subject lines that get opened
Generates 12 short, lowercase subject lines across four strategic types, each annotated with its risk, plus a top-three pick for your audience. It replaces the guess-and-hope subject line habit with a structured set you can rotate through A/B tests, and warns you when the email body is the real problem.
You are a subject line strategist for cold outbound. You've watched enough Smartlead and Instantly dashboards to know the truth: in cold email, the subject line's job is not to sell — it's to look like an internal, human email worth two seconds. Title-case marketing subjects, emoji, and anything resembling a newsletter get filtered by prospects and spam algorithms alike. Produce 12 subject lines for my campaign: - 1 to 4 words each, lowercase unless a proper noun demands otherwise. - No clickbait, no 'quick question', no 'touching base', no prospect's-name-in-subject gimmicks, no emoji, no percentage claims. - Grouped into four types, three lines each: internal-style (reads like a colleague wrote it), curiosity (specific enough to not be bait), direct (names the topic plainly), and referential (nods to the trigger or research behind the email). - For each line, add a five-word-max note on the risk it carries — vagueness, spam pattern, or overfamiliarity. Then pick your top three for my specific audience and say why in one sentence each. Before you write anything, interview me. Ask me these questions ONE AT A TIME, waiting for my answer each time: 1. What does the email itself say — paste it or summarize the pitch in two sentences. 2. Who is the audience (role, industry, seniority)? 3. Is there a trigger or research angle behind this campaign? 4. What subject lines have you already tried, and how did they perform? Once you have my answers, produce the 12 lines. If my email body is a feature pitch with no clear point, tell me the subject line can't save it and suggest what to fix first.
How to use it
- 1
Copy the prompt into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM.
- 2
Answer the interview — pasting the actual email body in question 1 produces far better lines than a summary.
- 3
Pick two or three lines from different types rather than three variations of the same idea.
- 4
Split-test them in your sequencer and feed the results back into your next session for sharper picks.
Best practices
Judge lines by the two-second inbox scan: would this look like a real email between colleagues?
Never test more than one subject line variable at once — same body, different subjects, or your data means nothing.
Open rates are murky post-privacy changes; judge subject lines by reply rate per send, not opens alone.
Keep the risk notes — they tell you what to watch for when a line underperforms.
Example: what this looks like in practice
A growth lead at a 40-person logistics SaaS is launching a campaign to operations directors at mid-size 3PLs, triggered by a rate-volatility news cycle. She pastes her 80-word email and answers that 'freight costs' framing has performed best historically. The model returns 12 lines; the internal-style pick 'carrier rate creep' and the referential pick 'your q3 rates' become her split test. Over 400 sends, the referential line pulls a 4.2% reply rate against 2.8%, and the risk note on the loser — 'vague without context' — matches exactly why replies stalled.
Best fit
This prompt is one gear in a bigger machine. We orchestrate 20+ tools into outbound systems our clients own — and guarantee the results.
Apply for a Pilot Spot → →Frequently asked questions
One to four words, almost always lowercase. Short subjects read like internal email between colleagues, which is the highest-trust pattern in a B2B inbox. Long, title-case subjects pattern-match to marketing blasts and get skipped or filtered. This prompt enforces the short format and groups lines by strategy so you're testing ideas, not lengths.
More cold email writing prompts
Get your cold email critiqued and scored like a skeptical prospect
Runs your cold email through a three-pass review: a brutal line-by-line read from a busy prospect's perspective, a five-dimension strategic score, and a rewrite that fixes the weakest dimensions. You learn why the email underperforms, not just that it does — the pattern transfers to every email you write after.
Write a complete cold email from scratch
Produces a complete, send-ready cold email of 60-100 words with the four-part spine that books meetings: reason, problem, proven outcome, soft ask. The five-question interview forces you to articulate the 'why now' most campaigns skip, and the prompt refuses to write until that angle is real.
Audit and rank your subject lines before you hit send
Puts every subject line candidate through a brutal pre-send audit: a 1-10 plausibility score, its biggest weakness named, spam-pattern flags, and a fixed rewrite. You get a ranked list with a clear verdict — two to test, the rest to kill — instead of sending on gut feel.