So I was going through my inbox the other day and saw an email with FAO in the subject line.
I knew roughly what it meant but I realised I had never actually thought about where it came from, when to use it properly, or whether it even makes sense in modern email.
So I went and looked into it properly. Here is everything I found.
What Does FAO Mean in Email
FAO stands for For the Attention Of.
That is it. Simple as that.
It is a way of telling someone that even though this email may be going to a shared inbox or a general address, it is meant for a specific person.
Think of it like knocking on a door and saying "is Sarah in?" You are not talking to the building. You are talking to one specific person inside it.
Where FAO Came From
FAO did not start with email.
It comes from old school business letter writing, the kind where you would send a letter to a company address but needed it to reach a specific person inside that company.
The writer would put FAO: John Smith at the top so whoever opened the mail at reception knew exactly who it was for.
When email came along people just carried the habit across. The history of business correspondence goes back centuries and FAO is one of those phrases that survived every format change.
It is one of those phrases that jumped from physical mail into digital communication without anyone really stopping to question it.
Where You See FAO Used Today
You mostly see FAO used in two places.
The first is in the subject line. Something like "FAO: Sarah Johnson - Invoice 2024" tells Sarah immediately that this email is for her specifically even if it landed in a shared team inbox.
The second is at the top of the email body before the greeting. So it might look like "FAO: John Smith" and then below that "Dear John" or straight into the message.
Both uses are correct. Both are common in professional email communication today.
Is FAO Still Relevant in 2025
This is the question I kept thinking about when I was researching this.
The honest answer is yes, in specific situations.
If you are emailing a general address like info@ or support@ or hello@ and you need one particular person to see it, FAO is still a clean and professional way to flag that.
If you are sending something to a department rather than an individual, adding FAO at the top makes the routing faster and reduces the chance of your message getting ignored or passed around.
For direct one-to-one emails between two people who already know each other, FAO is completely unnecessary.
FAO vs ATTN: What Is the Difference
A lot of people use FAO and ATTN interchangeably and they mean essentially the same thing.
ATTN stands for Attention and comes from the same letter writing tradition as FAO.
FAO is more commonly used in British and Commonwealth English. ATTN is more commonly used in American English.
If you are writing to someone in the US, ATTN might feel more natural. If you are writing to someone in the UK or Australia, FAO is the more familiar version.
Both work. Neither is wrong. It comes down to your audience.
How to Use FAO Correctly in an Email
Using FAO correctly comes down to knowing when it adds value and when it just adds clutter.
In the subject line it looks like this: FAO Sarah Johnson: Project Update Q2. Keep it at the very start before the actual topic.
In the email body it sits at the very top before anything else. FAO: Sarah Johnson. Then you move into your greeting and message below.
Do not use FAO in both the subject line and the body at the same time. Pick one location. Using it twice in the same email looks like you copied and pasted without thinking.
When FAO Can Actually Hurt Your Email
Here is the part most people do not talk about.
Using FAO in the wrong context can make your email feel outdated or overly formal in situations where it does not fit.
If you are working in a fast-moving SaaS team or a startup environment and you send an internal email with FAO in the subject line, it can come across as stiff.
If you are cold emailing someone and you put FAO at the top, it can make the message feel like a template rather than something personal.
Context matters a lot here. FAO is a professional formality and it works best in professional formal contexts.
FAO in Email Marketing and SaaS Communication
This is where things get more interesting from a modern email perspective.
In email marketing, FAO as a literal phrase is rarely used. But the concept behind it, making sure the right message reaches the right person, is the entire foundation of good email strategy.
When you build audience segments based on behavior, when you use personalization tokens, when you trigger emails based on what a user actually did, you are doing exactly what FAO was invented for.
You are making sure this message is for that specific person at that specific moment.
That is why email personalization matters so much for modern email teams. The goal has always been relevance. FAO was just the manual version of that.
What Good Email Targeting Actually Looks Like Now
The difference between a generic email blast and a well-targeted campaign is essentially the difference between sending one email to everyone and sending the right email to one person.
Today that happens through segmentation, behavioral triggers, and personalization at scale.
If someone visits your pricing page three times and does not convert, a triggered campaign automation that speaks directly to that behavior is FAO at its most powerful version.
According to research from Campaign Monitor, segmented email campaigns drive significantly higher open rates than generic broadcasts. That gap exists entirely because targeted emails feel like they were written for you specifically.
The phrase has evolved even if the words themselves have stayed the same.
The Bigger Picture
Most people reading this are either trying to understand what FAO means or trying to write better emails.
Both are connected to the same thing. Knowing your audience and speaking directly to them.
Whether that is as simple as putting FAO in a subject line or as advanced as building behavioral email automation workflows that trigger based on what your contacts actually do, the principle is identical.
The right message. The right person. The right moment.
If you are running email campaigns and want to go beyond manual addressing and start doing this at scale, TrueEmailer's segmentation and automation tools are worth looking at. You can get started free without needing a developer to set anything up.
FAQs
What does FAO stand for in email?
FAO stands for For the Attention Of. It signals that an email is intended for a specific person.
Is FAO still used in modern emails?
Yes, mainly when emailing shared inboxes or departments where you need to direct the message to one specific person.
Where does FAO go in an email?
Either at the start of the subject line or at the very top of the email body before the greeting.
What is the difference between FAO and ATTN?
They mean the same thing. FAO is common in British English. ATTN is common in American English.
Should I use FAO in casual emails?
No. FAO is a formal phrase and works best in professional or formal business communication contexts.