What Earns the Click? Headline and Subject Line Tips for Modern Marketers

Search and Sustain is built for marketers trying to figure out what actually earns attention today — in search, in inboxes, on LinkedIn, and now inside AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT, where apparently everyone is suddenly an SEO expert.

Hosted by Seth Hastings and Erin Hallstrom, the podcast blends audience marketing, SEO/AEO, editorial strategy, and real-world marketing psychology into conversations that feel less like a lecture and more like the discussions marketers are already having behind the scenes… usually while staring at declining open rates and asking, “Wait, why did that post go viral?”

Every episode breaks down the why behind clicks, engagement, visibility, and retention. The goal isn’t just to help you get traffic. It’s to help you earn attention — and keep it. Or, as Seth likes to put it: make your secret sauce sticky.

Expect real examples, honest reactions, marketing debates, practical takeaways, and conversations about the strategies shaping how brands get discovered in an increasingly crowded digital world where everyone wants clicks, algorithms change weekly, and somehow we’re all still pretending we understand LinkedIn.

No overcomplicated jargon. No recycled “10 tips” content written by someone who’s never opened Omeda or HubSpot. Just smart conversations about search, content, visibility, and the challenge of staying relevant when attention spans are now roughly the length of a TikTok scroll.

And because this isn’t supposed to be one of those “talk at you for 20 minutes and disappear” podcasts, we want to hear from you, too.

Got a headline you’d click instantly? A subject line you absolutely hated? A LinkedIn post that somehow stopped your scroll? Send it our way. We’ll probably talk about it in a future episode.

Follow along, connect with us, argue with us respectfully in the comments, and help shape where Search and Sustain goes next. Because honestly, marketers are figuring this stuff out in real time together.

Here is how you keep the conversation going and stay connected:

• MarketingEDGE Newsletter Subscription
• Erin Hallstrom's LinkedIn
• Seth Hastings' LinkedIn
• Answer Seth's question about "How much is your time worth" in the poll below. 

Seth Hastings: Welcome in from the small dance party of our intro music. Welcome to Search and Sustain. My name is Seth Hastings, and I’m your host. I’m an Associate Director of Digital Audience Development here at Marketing Edge, part of Endeavor B2B. 
 
Today I’m joined by my co-host, the expert in B2B niche SEO, AEO, and whatever acronym you want to use: Erin Hallstrom. Erin, please introduce yourself. 

Erin Hallstrom: Seth, I’m so excited to be doing this with you. I’m the Director of Content Operations and Visibility for Endeavor’s editorial newsroom. I also write a lot for Marketing Edge and do a lot of work with Marketing Edge. 
 
As the name implies, a large part of visibility is making sure we’re visible in all the places we want and need to be found: search engines, answer engines, and everywhere else that matters. I work with a lot of folks to help make sure we’re following best practices, so I’m super excited for what we’re going to talk about today. 

Seth Hastings: I am too. To get everybody on board with what Search and Sustain really is, I want to take a step back and explain who Endeavor B2B is and why that matters to you as a marketer. 
 
At our core, Endeavor B2B is a media company, but we’re also a strategic growth partner. We have marketing, research, media—everything. Why that matters for search and sustain is because we want to marry all of that together. Between Erin’s expertise on the SEO and editorial side and my expertise in audience marketing, we’re going to find that secret sauce that gets people to come in. 
 
But not only that—we don’t want people to come in and be one-click visitors. We want them to stay. We want to make that secret sauce as sticky as possible. That’s what Search and Sustain is all about. 
 
And our promise to you is that we’re going to be entertaining. We’re not going to be another boring podcast. We’ll be educational, yes, but we’re also going to try to be entertaining. 
 
So with that said, we’re going to play a game, because what’s more fun than games? We’re going to play a quick game called “Click It or Skip It.” I’m going to read headlines or email subject lines, and you’re going to decide whether you’d click on them or skip them. Erin, are you ready? 

Erin Hallstrom: I am. Hit me with it.

Seth Hastings: Perfect. We’re going to go rapid-fire, then come back and talk about them a little more. 

Number one: “Let’s Talk About Trucks, Wheels, and Trailers.” 

Erin Hallstrom: I feel like I’m going to skip that one. 

Seth Hastings: Number two: “Responding to the Unimaginable: How LABS Training Is Redefining Crisis Response Protocols.” 

Erin Hallstrom: I’m more likely to click on that one. 

Seth Hastings: Okay. For context, the first word is a name with a colon: “Smith: Keep the Eyes on the Prize.” 

Erin Hallstrom: I think I’m going to skip that one. 

Seth Hastings: Next, we have: “Communications Commission Moves Against ‘Restricted Entity’ Vendors in Sweeping Telecom Authorization Review.” 

Erin Hallstrom: I’m going to click on that one. 

Seth Hastings: Okay, and for a wild card, this is the LinkedIn version. Tell me if you’re going to hit “more” to see what’s below the fold. 
 
“50 million shopping queries a day on ChatGPT already. Do you know if Endeavor B2B’s products are recommended?” 

Erin Hallstrom: I think I’m going to click on that one. 

Seth Hastings: Perfect. That’s our game, but now let’s go back and review it. 
 
For those listening, we’ll include our LinkedIn profiles. If you clicked it or skipped it, let us know. Tell us why we’re right or why we’re wrong. If you think we’re wrong, let Erin know. If you think we’re right, let me know. 
 
Starting at the top, we had “Let’s Talk About Trucks, Wheels, and Trailers,” and you said skip. Why? 

Erin Hallstrom: It really didn’t tell me much. I’m sure to a concentrated group of people it might mean something, but to a larger group it lacks context. I don’t know what it’s about other than trucks—and even then, what kind of trucks? Where? 
 
It gives me nothing to go on, and it doesn’t compel me to want to click. 

Seth Hastings: Even if you put yourself within that audience or target market, it’s still a boring subject line or headline. Obviously, that’s what we’re here to talk about or engage with, so I just need more from it. 

Seth Hastings: Next, we had “Responding to the Unimaginable: How LABS Training Is Redefining Crisis Response Protocols,” and you said click. 

Erin Hallstrom: Context is a big deal for me—not just as a person, but as someone who trains people on optimization and thinks about target audiences all the time. Context matters, and I want to know what I can expect when I get that email or see that headline in a list of search results. 
 
This one sets that up. It tells me what I can expect to learn about, read about, or listen to. Whether it’s a subject line or a headline, it gives me a sense of what’s coming, and that’s why I’d click. 

Seth Hastings: I’d add that the first phrase—“Responding to the Unimaginable”—is the trigger that gets your attention. It’s captivating, and then it gives you more to think about. It creates interest and then follows through with substance. 

Next we had “Smith: Keep the Eyes on the Prize,” and you said skip. 

Erin Hallstrom: I did. First of all, “Smith”—I don’t know who that is. Even if someone said “Hallstrom,” there are a lot of Hallstroms, so which one? Again, context matters. 
 
“Keep the eyes on the prize”—whose eyes? What prize? What’s in it for me? Why should I open this? Why should I read it? It’s not telling me much. 

Erin Hallstrom: I think I’m like a lot of people: if something isn’t piquing my interest or telling me enough, I’m likely to skip it because I’m busy. You’re busy. If I don’t know from a subject line, a headline, or a LinkedIn post what something is about, I’m not going to spend my time investigating it. I need more to compel me to click and read. 

Seth Hastings: I definitely agree. There’s a time and place to use a person’s name, but you have to use it correctly. You can’t just say a name and assume you have someone’s attention. It has to be used in a way that makes sense.

It’s way too vague. It isn’t really getting your attention, and it just wasn’t executed correctly. 

Erin Hallstrom: I feel like an iteration that could have worked—and I’ll use you as an example, since listeners know your name—would be something like, “Seth Hastings Has His Eyes on the Audience Prize.” 
 
That gives me a first and last name and tells me exactly who. It also gives me more context. If I’m someone working in audience or marketing, I’m immediately thinking, okay, this is relevant to me. And if I recognize Seth Hastings’ name, I’m even more likely to click through. That works a lot better than “Smith:” or “Hastings:” followed by something vague. 

Seth Hastings: And there are a lot of Hastings out there too, let me tell you. We even have a whole Netflix series, from what I’m told. 
 
Next we had “Communications Commission Moves Against ‘Restricted Entity’ Vendors in Sweeping Telecom Authorization Review,” and you said click. 

Erin Hallstrom: I did. I can already hear people in my newsroom saying, “But Erin, isn’t that too long?” And I understand that concern. It is a lot of words. 
 
But it gives me pertinent information. If I’m in that job or role—if I’m a busy executive and I see something like that on my screen—I can immediately tell whether it’s relevant to my market and the information I need to do my job. The more details and context it gives me, the easier it is to decide that it’s worth my time to click through. 

Seth Hastings: I agree. Personally, I’m not someone who gets excited about the telecom industry, but I can see how this works really well within that space because, like you said, it gives you all the information you need. 
 
And one key detail I left out is that “restricted entity” was in quotation marks. Little things like that make the middle of a headline pop visually. Your eyes go there first, and then you read the whole thing. So it’s not just a language game—it’s also visual. If someone is scrolling through emails, how do you stop the scroll? How do you make them go horizontal and actually read? 

And then, lastly, our LinkedIn version: “50 million shopping queries a day on ChatGPT already. Do you know if Endeavor B2B’s products are recommended?” You said you’d click to see more. 

Erin Hallstrom: I would. This one plays into my curiosity. It had me at “Do you know if…” because, honestly, I don’t know. I’d want to learn more and see what else is there. 
 
It taps into that feeling of, “Am I keeping up?” and that curiosity would absolutely entice me to click. 

Seth Hastings: I agree. When it comes to AI, I have kind of a love-hate relationship because it’s a topic everybody is talking about. That makes it hard to get people’s attention, so you have to do it the right way. 
 
I think this does that well. It made me stop and look. On LinkedIn, little details matter, and using Endeavor B2B in the post helps catch attention too. AI is everywhere now, and a lot of posts feel repetitive—just another list of AI tips and tricks that could have been copied from someone else. It’s getting harder to find the gold in it, so the way you frame the message matters. 

What I do want to add, because this is LinkedIn, is that there was also an image that said, “Get your $200 Amazon gift card.” So I want to know two things. First, is that enticing? If you’re in the market and this is relevant to you, does that bring you in further? 

Erin Hallstrom: It piques my curiosity. I don’t know how many people share my mindset of, “Okay, but what are the odds, and what do I have to do to win that?” Still, it would make me want to learn more.

If it’s a $200 gift card to a place I actually care about, then yes, I’m more likely to investigate further and keep clicking through. 
 
But that gets back to context again. I want more information. How are you choosing the winner? What are my odds? I know you’re not necessarily putting that in a LinkedIn post, but as a busy person, I want to know whether it’s worth the time. 

Erin Hallstrom: If I’m going to spend five minutes doing something to help you out, I want to know what the odds are that I might win the gift card. If it’s “Spend 45 minutes filling this out for a one-in-100 chance,” I’m going to question whether I have time for that. 
 
But if it’s, “Take this two-minute thing and see if you’re a good fit,” that feels different. Everyone is busy. Anyone listening to us right now is probably doing multiple things at once, not just sitting and listening. We have to think about that when we write headlines, subject lines, or LinkedIn posts. How do we make sure what we’re putting out there is worth people’s time? 

Seth Hastings: I think you’re getting at something important: a guarantee versus a chance usually performs much better. I get offers like this all the time—listen to us and we’ll give you some amount of money—and it can be a good strategy because people are willing to sit through it. 
 
But then it’s on you to make sure the content is sticky after that. So my follow-up question is: if it is guaranteed money, what’s the lowest amount you’d be willing to commit to for something like this? $200 is definitely on the higher end. 

Erin Hallstrom: Can I make faces during the spiel? 
It really comes down to how much your time is worth, and that’s going to be different for everyone. If listeners can’t tell, I’m a huge facial-expression person. 
 
If anyone listening wants to send me things, I’d say $50 is probably the lowest amount that would get me to sit and listen. 

Seth Hastings: I’d say $50 for about 30 minutes is my minimum too. I’ve done a survey for $20 before—it was guaranteed, and it took about 20 minutes—but by the end of it I was just clicking to get through. 
 
So even if incentives are effective, you still have to think about the overall length of your pitch because attention spans fade. People are listening while doing other things. You have to be effective, and your strongest part of the pitch has to be at the very beginning. If you don’t do that, the value of everything else just keeps dropping as you go.