Emoji created lots of buzz lately. For example, Google now shows emoji characters on its search engine result pages, and Instagram and MailChimp did some interesting research:
But what emoji could you use in your subject lines, and how do you use them?
Popular emoji
In 83,019 subject lines, which reached my inbox within the last months, these have been the top 20 emojis by unique senders:
♥   hearts |
☀   sunny |
❤   heart |
❄   snowflake |
✔   heavy check mark |
✈   airplane |
™   tm |
✉   envelope |
⚽   soccer |
☺   relaxed |
⌛   hourglass |
✂   scissors |
☁   cloud |
♨   hotsprings |
☑   ballot box with check |
▶   arrow forward |
✳   eight spoked asterisk |
♦   diamonds |
🍀   four leaf clover |
➡   arrow right |
✌   v |
♣   clubs |
☝   point up |
⏰   alarm clock |
🎉   tada |
❗   exclamation |
❇   sparkle |
✖   heavy multiplication x |
♠   spades |
☕   coffee |
▪   black small square |
⌚   watch |
🏈   football |
🎁   gift |
🍕   pizza |
✴   eight pointed black star |
😜   stuck out tongue winking eye |
😎   sunglasses |
💰   moneybag |
💡   bulb |
💜   purple heart |
👭  two women holding hands |
👬  two men holding hands |
👍   thumbsup |
🏀   basketball |
🎅   santa |
🎄   christmas tree |
⭐   star |
⬆   arrow up |
❓   question |
✨   sparkles |
✏   pencil2 |
✋   raised hand |
⛺   tent |
⛳   golf |
⚡   zap |
⚓   anchor |
☔   umbrella |
◀   arrow backward |
▫   white small square |
⏳   hourglass flowing sand |
🚤   speedboat |
🚙   blue car |
🚁  helicopter |
🙈   see no evil |
The table above needs some explanation. Each cell contains up to three images:
- The black one on the left is the raw character, which you can copy and paste into your subject line, preheader or email body;
- the next one is the Gmail.com emoji image;
- and the 3rd one is the Outlook.com emoji image – if available.
Use CTRL-F in your browser to search for keywords like ‘heart’ or ‘plane’ and find the most suitable emoji for your campaigns.
Subject line examples
Emoji are quite common among the pros. Here are some subject line examples for the top 10 emoji from williams-sonoma.com, lillypulitzer.com, wetsealnewsletter.com, giggle.com, retailmenot.com, sears.com, photojojo.com, abercrombie-email.com, posterjack.ca, abercrombie-email.com, golfbreaks.com, tigerdirect.com, LEGO.com, lillypulitzer.com, sears.com, abercrombie-email.com, papajohns-specials.com, finishline.com, sears.com & markandgraham.com:
- A New Twist on M♥M’s Day Gifts + More Great Savings In Stores & Online
- Be Mom’s Favorite ♥
- Sundaze ☀ Last Call for $10 Shorts!
- ☀ sun’s out, sale’s on!
- How well do you know M❤M?
- Open ASAP — (you’ll ❤ this!)
- Make Snow Your New Fave Model ❄️ with 4 Snow-photo Tips!
- ❄ A Winter Advisory you NEED to check out →
- ✔ 30% Savings for Mom Ends Today @ Posterjack
- Up to 50% Off: ✔ off those 2015 Style Resolutions
- ✈ Fabulous Flight-Inclusive Offers from £269! | Your Sunshine & Golf Await… ✈
- ✈ Tech To Go: $199 Laptop | $79 Tablet | $10 7-in-1 Charging Kit, plus $128GB SSD $59 | 55″ LED TV $499
- Exclusive LEGO® Star Wars™ Offers Coming Soon!
- Introducing Lilly Pulitzer Luxletic™
- ✉ [Official Announcement] You’re going to love this: Save HUGE on Apple devices
- ✉ Open for something BIG!
- ⚽ Score Pizza With A FREE Kick!
- ⚽ 40% off. Wednesday steals! Don’t flop…
- (Attention, please!) ☺ You’ve earned these amazing deals
- Mom deserves a Getaway ☺ {with free shipping today!}
In Gmail, those subject lines should* translate into:
(*They don’t necessarily when copying & pasting, see the screenshots in the cheat sheet below; however, html entities trigger all emoji successfully within the email body. Debugging encoding issues is a pain…)
- A New Twist on MM’s Day Gifts + More Great Savings In Stores & Online
- Be Mom’s Favorite
- Sundaze Last Call for $10 Shorts!
- sun’s out, sale’s on!
- How well do you know MM?
- Open ASAP — (you’ll this!)
- Make Snow Your New Fave Model ï¸ with 4 Snow-photo Tips!
- A Winter Advisory you NEED to check out →
- 30% Savings for Mom Ends Today @ Posterjack
- Up to 50% Off: off those 2015 Style Resolutions
- Fabulous Flight-Inclusive Offers from £269! | Your Sunshine & Golf Await…
- Tech To Go: $199 Laptop | $79 Tablet | $10 7-in-1 Charging Kit, plus $128GB SSD $59 | 55″ LED TV $499
- Exclusive LEGO® Star Wars Offers Coming Soon!
- Introducing Lilly Pulitzer Luxletic
- [Official Announcement] You’re going to love this: Save HUGE on Apple devices
- Open for something BIG!
- Score Pizza With A FREE Kick!
- 40% off. Wednesday steals! Don’t flop…
- (Attention, please!) You’ve earned these amazing deals
- Mom deserves a Getaway {with free shipping today!}
Emoji Cheat Sheet Download
To see in detail how all emoji look in Gmail.com, Gmail for Android and Outlook.com, subscribe to my weekly email marketing news and get the full emoji cheat sheet as a welcome gift. It also includes a list of animated symbols, which you can use in Gmail subject lines. Of course you can always unsubscribe from the newsletter, if it’s not your cup of tea. Others did that before ;-). But I’ll be glad if you’d give it a try – most people like it.
I’ll include the sheet’s download link in the welcome email. (If you got problems with the download, just drop me a line and I’ll send you the package.)
RSS Subscription
Thank you very much
…cool
How did you create the two cluster diagrams at the top of the article?
Good question, I wrote a step-by-step guide on how to reproduce such a map: look at the bottom of this posting.
I’m trying to get some little images to show in the subject line. Hoping this will help me 🙂
Thx!!
Thnks a lot
…Thanks
…great info
Hope the icon arrive.
thank you
…it worked. thanks
…Great, Thanks!
…i dont easily see the instructions on HOW to do it. I see all the icons you CAN use. thx
Just copy and paste them:
why some of the emoji like cars or cristmas tree doesn’t appear properly , is there any solution because i wanna use them in my mail subject thanks.
Thanks !!
… Thank you very mcuh
Thanks Rene,
I was looking for a stethoscope emoji. Could you please help.
…thxs
…i need to know what the command to place this emotions on the subject please.
Thank you
Bravo, grazie
I seek an animated American flag emoji for email subject lines.
I, also, seek an animated flashing red dot (or red cop car flasher) emoji for email subject lines.
This is great I am going to use these in my emails to clients
I tried to opt-in to receive the cheat sheet but it’s not working. Can you share it with me 🙂
Sorry Tonje, the form was broken since MailChimp shut down its API v1; should be fixed, now.
Hi, I seek for a red five spots star (communist’s) emoji. Can you help me about it?
Hello, Now I want to find a money bag emoticon. Because when I used emojis in newsletters title and it is a very good trick to make difference between other messages. If you use some emoticon in title its works like a magnet for people’s. 🙂
how do you make a custom emoji for email subject line?