Among Us Always Imposter - A/B test subject line has a 0.5% open rate. Why?

Question

Hey everyone,Hoping to get some expert eyes on this because my team and I are completely stumped. We're running a re-engagement campaign for a segment of younger subscribers (18-24 age range) and decided to try a fun, pop-culture-themed subject line for an A/B test.The results have been... disastrous.Here's the breakdown of our A/B test:Subject Line A (Control): "Psst... A Secret 25% Off Code Just For You 👀"	Subject Line B (Variant): "Is This Deal An Imposter? 🤫 25% Off Among Us"The Results:Subject A Open Rate: 18.5% (Our average)	Subject B Open Rate: 0.5% (Basically zero)Our theory was that a clever reference to a hugely popular game would capture attention. The whole concept was built around the "among us always imposter" meme, where our deal was so good it felt like it shouldn't be there. We even got inspired by how some modern brands create their landing pages with this kind of fun, gaming-centric vibe.Honestly, this is the page that gave us the idea. We thought it was a great example of engaging marketing for this demographic: https://modhello.com/among-us/We loved the energy and thought a subject line with a similar theme would be a guaranteed win. Clearly, we were wrong.My questions for the community are:Is the "Among Us" reference just too old now and comes off as cringe?	Could Klaviyo's spam filters (or Gmail/Outlook) be flagging words like "Imposter" or "Among Us" and sending our emails straight to spam? This is my biggest fear.	For those of you who market to a similar audience, have you had success with gaming references? What works?We wanted to create a fun "is this deal an imposter?" moment for our subscribers, but it seems our email itself became the one getting ejected. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. We're trying to figure out if we should avoid this kind of creative forever or if we just executed it poorly.Thanks!

StefanUE · Accepted Answer

​@himekawoathanks for a great question!First thing I’d do is run both variations of the email through a spam tester to determine all possible triggers. Here’s a helpful Klaviyo Help article to get you started, in case you haven’t done this before (it doesn’t reference GlockApps as a potential tool - just to add that as a choice, as well).To answer your questions more specifically:Yes, Among Us was big in about 2020, and has since sharply dropped off. Chances are some within that target audience (which where 13 at the time) don’t even remember the concept anymore.Gmail, Outlook and the rest will definitely stop to think around words such as “impostor” and “25% off”, especially when used together. Not saying it’s a guaranteed spam flag, but definitely do avoid it. Here’s a useful blog with some common spam words listed. And here’s another Klaviyo Help article on how to avoid spammy words.Gaming references are a hit and a miss. Broader, pop culture references tend to do better. Google Trends is your friend - I have absolutely no idea who Yunara is, but they have 5,000 hits in the last 20 hours something must’ve happened!Let me know if that was helpful!

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