Best Time to Send Email Marketing Campaigns

What is the best time to send email marketing campaigns? Have you ever thought about it? This question must have come into the minds of many digital marketers and that could be the reason you are reading this post.

Once Bill Gates was asked about his secret to success during an interview with Larry King. It was his reply-

I was in the right place, at the right time.

Bill Gates

Many of us believe that timing has a lot to do with our success. It may not be everything, but it certainly matters. The same things apply to Email Marketing. It plays an important role in your email marketing strategy. The success of your Email Marketing Campaigns is crucial for your success.

During Email Marketing campaigns, I noticed only 33.3% of newsletter response rate. I thought it was too low as per my expectations. So I decided to do some research to know the best time to send the email newsletter. I found lots of useful data that helped me to increase newsletter open rate.

This article covers all those insights that helped me to find out the best time to send Email Marketing Campaigns. I have also included some of the crucial facts and figures that will help you find out the best day and time for your Email Marketing campaigns to get the maximum conversions.

Best Time to Send Email Newsletters: A General Advice

Below are the general email send time tips which are widely accepted. These tips are great when you are starting off, but be sure read on and see why they won’t always work.

• Daytime vs. Nighttime. Usually, it is better to send emails during day time when people are awake. Not asleep. You have the highest probability that your email will be opened.
• Weekends. Weekends are the days when most of the working people either relax or go for adventures to take out stress. So weekend tends to have less open rates and most of the email marketers avoid newsletter shot on weekends.
• Monday. The general consensus is that we should avoid emails campaigns on Monday. After the weekend, when people run into the office, they find their inbox flooded with emails over the past few days. Most of the people do not focus on those email and delete them or only open for highly important emails. So the probability is very less that your newsletter will be opened.
• Best Days. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday have traditionally believed to be the best days to send a newsletter to your fans. Email marketers also avoid newsletter on Friday as people are too busy in finishing their work before weekends.
• Mid-Week, Mid Days. It is the most traditional approach to sending out a newsletter. It is a general conception that Mid-week and Mid Days tend to give a better response to the newsletter. It believed to be safe and reliable.

Now let’s have a look at the studies conducted by some of the industry leaders in Email Marketing.

Mail Chimp Study

If we go through the study by the Mail Chimp, they analysed more than a billion emails to identify the optimal time to send E-mail marketing messages. It is found that email open rate increased after 12 pm, and the time period between 2 PM to 5 PM was the most active.

Tuesday and Thursday were the busiest days in terms of email volume. So if we go through the mail chimp study, Tuesday and Thursday are the best days to send the newsletter. Although, you can try to send your newsletter other days just for the testing purpose. Who knows you might have better chances to get better results as your messages stand out from the crowd.

Get Response Study

If we go through the study of Getting Response, they analysed 21 million emails sent in the US during Q1 2012. They found that the majority of inbox traffic and activity takes place during the working week, peaking on Thursday.

In fact, Thursday was the best day for all metrics: percentage sent, open rates and CTR.

On the other hand, On weekends, a noticeable drop off in the email open rate observed. So we get a clear idea that sending emails on weekdays is not a smart thing to do. So avoid sending important messages on Saturday or Sunday.

On weekends, the email open rate drops off slightly, while the massive drop in the Click Through Rate (CTR) was seen compared to the peak on Thursday.

Statistical Averages Are Good For Guidelines, But Not Rules

The above statistics only provide you with the guidelines. For those who want to stay safe can use stats and go with the best days and time to get good results. Although there are several factors that affect newsletter engagement rate, it depends upon your industry as well.

I have heard many bloggers saying that Sunday was the best day for their newsletter campaign. If you like to stay away from the crowd, even you can do some research and try something new by sending emails newsletter on different days. It will help you to identify the best day and time for your kind of industry and demography.

It is better to do some research rather than working with stats and figures. It is not compulsory that the things worked for others will work for you as well. So always keep your mind open and keep doing R&D. It might give you better or even worst experience than before, but most importantly, you will learn about your industry. That is the ultimate key to your success in Email Marketing.

I hope you would have found this article useful. If I missed something or you have better ideas, put them in the comment section below. It will be highly appreciated.

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