Everyone—no matter their age—loves email. It’s true! Half of the world’s population check their inboxes daily. And thanks to advancements in segmentation, reaching your subscribers that fall into this half of humanity is easier than ever, no matter who they are, where they are, or how old they are! 

In fact, segmented emails drive 30% more opens and 50% more click throughs than unsegmented emails, according to Hubspot. The process of segmenting your audiences is simple in Backstroke’s email subject line generator. When in the email subject line generator, you can apply various Audience Filters to ensure the AI messages it crafts are hyper targeted to drive engagement for your selected subscriber segments.

As Backstroke is trained on real-time data from over 10k email programs, it can determine behaviors, trends, and creative preferences for generational marketing that specifically targets different age ranges. 

To show you how it works, below we’ll examine these preferences for email marketing to four different generations: Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. 

Generational Marketing Chart 1: Subject Line Letter Capitalization 

Let’s start with something simple. You’re probably aware that, at least stereotypically, different generations have very specific texting preferences. Who hasn’t joked about Baby Boomer ellipses and Gen Z’s penchant for no punctuation?!

Well, data informs us that some of those stereotypes are true. For instance, we see this play out in the chart below. Real-time email marketing data informs us that, the older a subscriber gets, the more likely they are to engage with AI messages that contain ALL CAPS. Conversely, the younger the subscriber, the more likely they are to engage with messages that are written in sentence case.

This means that, if your audience segment skews older, applying the All Caps filter in Backstroke’s email subject line generator is a great choice, as BABY BOOMERS LOVE ALL CAPS. 

Generational Marketing Chart 2: Exclamations Vs. Questions

Similar to the last chart, we see a creative preferences shift across generations here. Following a similar pattern of behavior, the older an audience is, the more likely they are to engage with AI messages that contain exclamation points. The younger they are, the more likely they are to engage with messages that ask questions.

Generational Marketing Chart 3: Slinging Slang

Gen Z loves slang. Brands that are considered Gen Z faves understand this and incorporate it into the great email subject lines they send.

However, while Zoomer-centric slang is all the rage right now, it’s actually Millennials who love to see slang in marketing messaging the most! Gen Z follows closely behind Millennials though, indicating that if your email marketing targets younger generations, selecting 👍 within Backstroke’s email subject line creator’s slang filter is a good move. 

Generational Marketing Charts 4 & 5: Let’s Get Emotional

Natural language processing powers text-based generative AI solutions to better understand emotional intent behind copywriting. It also helps email marketers better understand which emotions their subscribers are most likely to connect with. 

When it comes to generational marketing, this can get as simple as understanding whether an age range prefers to see subject lines that are generally more positive or negative. Thanks to the depth of understanding Backstroke has of audiences’ emotional sentiments though, this goes much deeper . . .

While Backstroke’s data analysis informs us that Gen Z has the most proclivity for negative emotional sentiments within their AI messages (perhaps this is due to their dark humor), all generations engage with a wider range of emotions on different scales. In the chart below, we examine six emotions across the four generations—joy, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise, and anticipation.

An analysis of this data shows some pretty interesting trends in engagement with AI messages in generational marketing:

• Gen Z are the most likely to engage with angry and sad-sounding messages. This aligns with the previous chart, showing engagement with positive and negative emotions within messages. 
• Millennials are the generation most likely to engage with AI messages that showcase surprise as the primary emotion. 
• Gen X seems slightly happier, with higher engagement rates for messages that are joyful, surprising, and anticipatory. 
• When it comes to who prefers the happiest-sounding messages in generational marketing though, Boomers take the cake! Baby Boomers have the lowest levels of engagement with AI messages featuring negative emotional sentiment.

Email Marketing to Different Generations Is Easier Than Ever

All five charts show that, when using Backstroke’s email subject line generator to craft the best email subjects for your audience segments, its proprietary data reveals very granular creative insights into what subscribers prefer. This means that you can entrust that you’re generating the best email marketing subject lines for whomever you’re sending to, no matter their age, location, device type, and more.

Personalizing email content will grow increasingly important in an age where consumers demand it and email experiences (like that of the incoming iOS 18) require it. 

Today, 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences. Backstroke’s Sandbox toolkit makes it simple for email marketers to personalize their email content, driving 31% more revenue per send. 

So go ahead and make your email marketing program sound like the voice of a generation . . . no matter who that generation is!