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Bvckup blog: Please confirm your email address

Web developer figures out that the email subject “Please confirm your email” gets a much higher response rate than his original, “Email confirmation.”

bvckup:

The original subject read like… well… a confirmation rather than something that requested an action and people simply did not bother even opening an email.

Using the imperative wording “please confirm” suggests the recipient must take an action, rather than passively receive information. This reminds me of a Mac OS X Human Interface Guideline:

Use a verb or verb phrase for the title of a push button. The title you create should describe the action the button performs—Save, Close, Print, Delete, Change Password, and so on.

The difference between “Email confirmation” and “Please confirm your email” is like that between “Ok” (Windows) and “Save” (Mac).