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Tried this for BCC last year on a lark. Christmas crushed.

As always.. I'm super curious about the answer to the question that ultimately doesn't matter much in the conversion-context.. Why?

Given your history w/ testing like this, I'm curious if you see value in asking 'why', and whether or not there are useful ways to get an answer. It seems like in addition to satisfying my curiosity about human psychology, it would be helpful in informing next-tests to make the entire process more efficient... but I don't see much talk about the 'why' when it comes to these tests.

I'm not patio11, but my guess (completely speculating here, of course) would be that "Merry Christmas" sounds more like something someone you know in a casual context (friends, family, etc.) would say to you, whereas "Happy Holidays" is used more by companies, which tend to try harder to be politically correct. When users see "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays", they might be more likely to just read the subject line and open the message without checking the sender, assuming it's from a friend. "MC" also sounds (to me) more like an email that is being sent with a specific purpose (as opposed to just a reminder that the company exists), e.g., maybe the company is offering you free bingo cards as a gift.

Out of curiosity, did you have a control? That is, was it "Merry Christmas from BCC!" vs. "Happy Holidays from BCC!" vs. "[Normal email subject] from BCC!"?

I'm curious to know how much "Merry Christmas" improves results vs. a baseline compared to how much "Happy Holidays" may hurt results, as has been suggested by others. The linked article only compares "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays", which makes it hard to know if "Merry Christmas" is really helping, or if "Happy Holidays" is only hurting.

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