MackCollier.com

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If you use FeedBurner for Email Subs then DON’T DO THIS!

If you’ve read here for any amount of time, you know that I am often breaking stuff and screwing up, and then you get to benefit from my dumbassery.  Last week, David Wood was kind enough to share with me this screenshot of how my emails from MackCollier.com look in his inbox:

EVERY day when the latest post from MackCollier.com arrived in David’s inbox, it showed up in the same format:

Sender: MackCollier.com     Subject: MackCollier.com

Seriously?  I was mortified when I saw this screenshot!  I assumed (first mistake) that Feedburner was making the title of my post as the email Subject, but that clearly wasn’t the case.  Apparently, Feedburner by default picks your site URL as the email subject.

Thankfully, it’s a dead simple change to make, and here’s how you can change your email subject so that it’s the title of your blog post:

1 – Log into your Feedburner account.

2 – Click the Publicize tab at the top (If you have multiple feeds being managed by Feedburner, you’ll want to login and then click the feed you want to change and THEN click the Publicize tab)

3 – Click Email Subscriptions on the left.

4 – Click Email Branding.

5 – In the Email/Subject Title: box, put this: ${latestItemTitle}

6 – Click Save.

Now for an example of how big this change can be, before I made this change, last Thursday’s blog post showed up in the inbox of email subscribers with the Subject: MackCollier.com.

After I made the above switch, it showed up as Subject: How is Twitter Impacting SEO and Search? Here’s the (Visual) Proof

Which email Subject do you think would get more opens?

This leads to another important point: Subscribe to your own feed.  I was already subscribed via RSS, but I should have subscribed to my own Email feed as well, so I could have seen how the emails were showing up for subscribers.

So hopefully that helps you, if you’ve been using Feedburner for a while, what do you like best about it?  What could be better?

 

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About Mack Collier

My name is Mack Collier and I am a digital marketing and content strategist located in Alabama. Since 2006 I've helped companies of all sizes from startups to global brands such as Adobe, Dell and Ingersoll-Rand, create customer-centric programs, content and experiences. A long-time internet geek, I've been online since 1988 and began using social networking sites in 1991 when I joined Prodigy. Today, I help companies understand how new technologies like web3, crypto and artificial intelligence can integrate with existing marketing strategies to lead to exceptional customer experiences.

Comments

    • Michele Welch says

      Ditto! I’m a techy person, so I was surprise I completely missed that! Thanks for the tutorial Mack…much appreciated.

      Makes me realize I have to spend more time learning apps such as these. 😉

      • Mack Collier says

        Glad it helped both of you! I think it really speaks to the importance of subscribing to your own feed so you can see it as your readers are.

  2. Nicholas Sack says

    I have been using Feedburner for months and I just found out about this feature yesterday actually. Never have I thought Google would give free branding control to anybody!

    Thanks for pointing this out!

  3. Rachel says

    First thing I do when setting up a new thing on anything technoligical (blog, phone, computer, whatever) is go through all the options for customization. Even if I don’t change it, at least I know what options are available – and I can change the major ones right away. It’s well worth the time to get it set up right the first time!

  4. Amber Avines says

    I have been looking for that setting on my FeedBurner for weeks! I do subscribe to my own stuff via email and RSS and I knew that I wasn’t getting the subject line. I just didn’t see the option to get the title in directly. Now that you point it out, it’s so obvious that I feel silly that I missed it!

    Thanks for the helpful tip, Mack!

    Amber @wordsdonewrite

  6. Gabriele Maidecchi says

    Actually Mack I think it’s something they changed in “newer” accounts.
    My Feedburner is probably 8 months old and my Title value is:

    ${latestItemTitle} | Esimple Studios Blog

    I am sure I didn’t change it, so probably they changed the behavior lately.
    Which is kinda good, having the site URL as subject is surely a bit stupid.

  8. Christa M. Miller says

    Wow Mack, I never even thought about this as I have subscribed to your blog for months via email — I trust your name so I’m just as happy to see it come in! However, I use FeedBurner for myself as well as clients, so I’m glad for this tip. Thank you!

  9. Ozio Media says

    Subscribing to your own feed is a great idea. One of the best things about FeedBurner is the easy way you can keep your followers if you switch from one blogging platform to another. It’s easy to change and verify the feed directly on FeedBurner.

  11. Tara Coomans says

    Great post – don’tcha love the “DOH!” moments?!
    I’m also not a techy..and FeedBurner doesn’t feel that intuitive to me.
    I am excited to see that FeedBurner has a new beta format (check it out next time you are in FeedBurner) which suggests that things might get more intuitive.

    One thing I can not find for the life of me is how to change my emails from an excerpt to the full content. That frustrates me.

    But I’ve been using it for over 3 years and I’m still discovering things about it that I love. Within the last year I branded my emails with my logo. I also like the ability to export my email list.

  14. Julie Weishaar says

    Thanks so much Mack. We are kindred spirits with regards to “dumbassery” except that I am not always to fix what I screw up LOL. I had no idea about this either and really appreciate your sharing with us. Just fixed it!

  15. Ileane says

    Hey Mack, great FeedBurner tip. It’s funny you say subscribe to your own blog because the only blogs that I subscribe to via email are my own. It’s really funny when I get the email for my primary blog in my gmail account and it says that it’s coming from “me”. 🙂
    I get everyones posts on Twitter and Facebook and subscribing to comments is like having a part time job all by itself.

  16. Davne says

    Awesome tip! I’ve been running my site and email subscriptions for two years with just the title of my blog as the subject and never thought (even though it’s obvious) to make the title the title of the most recent post.

    One thing I did add though was to put “Post Title | My Site Title”, so people know the email’s coming from my site and just not some random email. I thought this was particularly important as I have about 4K email subscribers who are long used to seeing just my site’s title as the subject.

  17. Fran says

    Hi there
    I know this post is from last year…
    BUT, I´m hoping you can help! When my email is sent, the FROM field shows my title/email twice. So for example: FrannysFootstepsFrannysFootsteps.
    Twice, rather than once.
    This is in the FROM field of the email, not the subject.
    Anyone know how to fix this? Do I need to reburn my feed? And if so, how do I do that and not make the same mistake!! Thanks

    • Mack Collier says

      Fran in your Feedburner account click on the Publicize tab and then Communication Preferences and make sure the From field is your email and not FrannysFootstepsFrannysFootsteps.

  18. twlack says

    I have about 50 authors on my blog. When the email goes out I would really like to include the author of that article just before the “Posted: date.”

  19. Johan Vranken says

    Well, I did exactly that and now the subject of my emails read:
    ${latestItemTitle}
    Not exactly what I expected …
    Any idea what happens?

    alligator.blogger.com