How News Digest Subject Lines Are Created

News Digest Subject Line Checklist

Maria Steinberg avatar
Written by Maria Steinberg
Updated over a week ago

Subject Lines should be considered your message's first impression and hopefully compel your Audience Members to take action by clicking and opening your News Digest. At Cerkl Broadcast, we've come up with the perfect formula to catch your Audience's attention.

Subject Line Factors

As we begin to automate and personalize your subject lines, there are several factors that go into building them:

Our system does a number of checks on each Subscriber to determine what subject line is best for them. Below we run through the order of checks that occur in our system.

Check #1: Is “Always Use Fallback Subject Line” on?

  • If yes: Then the default fallback subject line will be used no matter what.

  • If no: Move onto Check #2.

Please Note: This is a setting on our end. If you are not sure if this is on, please reach out to us for that answer.


Check #2: Is there Priority Content in the News Digest?

  • If yes: Then reference the following image to see what your subject line will be.

    • Please Note: In the following examples, IF SET, your subject line prepend will be added to the beginning of these subject lines. If you are not sure what your subject line prepend is, please reach out to us for that answer.

  • If no: Move onto Check #3


Check #3: Does a Story have over 90% relevancy to the Subscriber?

  • If yes: Then one of your pieces of Content will become the main focus of the subject line, as seen in the image below.

    • Please Note: We are able to turn this option off on our end. If you would like us to do so, please reach out.

  • If no: Move onto Check #4.


Check #4: Do the Stories have tags on them?

  • If yes: Then the subject line will be one of the following depending on if the Subscriber is personalized or not:

    • Personalized: "Latest {Category 1, Category 2, Author*} news from {Cerkl Name}, just for {First Name}."

      • *If a user follows an author and content is included in the Digest by the same author, the Author's name may be included in the Subject Line.

    • Non Personalized: "Latest {Category 1, Category 2} news from {Cerkl Name}, just for {First Name}. Click here to personalize your stories, schedule, and format."

  • If no: Move onto Check #5.


Check #5: Is there a Fallback Subject Line?

  • If yes: Then the Fallback Subject Line will be used as the News Digest's subject line when Posting Priorities are not in use and the Audience Member has not yet personalized their experience.

  • If no: Then Check #6 is used.


Check #6: Subject line based on the amount of Content in the News Digest.

  • If the total Content in the News Digest is GREATER than 3, the subject line will be: "Our x most popular stories from the past {delivery frequency}”

  • If the total Content in the News Digest is LESS than 3, the subject line will be: “What’s Trending at your Org (Cerkl Abbreviation)”


If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at support@cerkl.com or use the support Chat toward the bottom right-hand corner of any cerkl.com page.

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