Email is still one of the best channels for marketing and building relationships with your readers, and that does not seem ready to change anytime soon. In the meantime, businesses and marketers are still wondering about the best time to send email campaigns.
Like almost every other relevant topic in the world of internet marketing, it is difficult to establish a definite, one-size-fits all answer to the question on the best time to send out email campaigns.
BEST TIME: Email Marketing Continues to Deliver Strong ROI
We’ve compiled several studies and statistics to best answer the question:
- Monday is not the best day to send email because, well you know, people are just beginning their work week and are therefore inundated with emails and planning.
- You can scratch Friday too because, by then, people are already shifting their focus to their weekend plans and other fun stuff.
- You can forget Saturday as well because it is the only day without a workday following it so most people are not paying attention to their emails.
Intelligent guesses are great, and work well for many purposes as many marketers will testify.
But today, we take a look at some numbers to arrive at an idea that goes beyond the intelligent guess and the disappointing response “it depends”.
The Best Day To Send
Mondays
So they’ve taken a bit of a beating as the worst day for email campaigns, but an email marketing benchmark study by Experian will make you think twice about subscribing to that idea.
According to the study, emails sent out on Mondays had the highest ROI.
Another study done by SurveyMonkey discovered that Mondays were also the best day to send out surveys. The study which involved analyzing 100000 surveys sent out Monday through Friday uncovered that surveys sent on Mondays received 10% more responses than the average.
Tuesdays & Thursdays
The golden children of email marketing, these two days widely rumored to be the best days to send out email campaigns.
And it turns out the rumors are not exaggerated. According to a study done by GetResponse involving 300 million emails, Tuesday was discovered to have the highest open and click through, and Thursday was not too far off the pace.
Wednesdays
Smack in the middle of the week, Wednesdays maintain this same balance where email campaigns are concerned. They are neither the best nor the worst day on which you can send an email.
Wednesdays do have something going for them though; according to a study done by Harland Clarke Digital on how the average individual engages with email marketing messages, Wednesday is by far the most popular day on which most marketing emails are sent. They also boast the highest open rates of 20.6% across mobile and desktop.
Fridays
If you’re a retailer, then you should thank God it’s Friday. Retention Science acquired data—from analysis of 100 million transactions, 20 million user profiles, and 100 email marketing campaigns—which showed that emails on sent on Friday produced a 26% conversion rate—just 2% shy of the leader Tuesday (TGIT if you’re a retailer!)
Weekends
According to a study done by Kissmetrics, Saturday and Sunday are like a double edged sword: they boast the highest open rates (as high as 44% on Saturday) and click rates rise to 10%; BUT they also come with the highest bounce rates and abuse reports (0.11% in both cases.)
Some people would rather not be disturbed on the weekends.
According to the email benchmark study by Experian, weekends boasted the highest open, click, transaction and revenue rates per email.
The Best Time To Send
When it comes to Email Marketing, not all hours of the day are created equal.
Early Morning
Kissmetrics found out that the early morning—6am to be exact—came with highest click through rates. Bounce rates are also at their peak during this time.
Mid-Morning (10am –Noon)
Open rates peak at 10am, and the decline throughout the rest of the day according to a study by MailerMailer.
Late Afternoon (3pm-5pm)
According to MailChimp, the most email activity overall occurs within the timeframe of 2pm-5pm.
Evening (5pm-7pm)
A great period for B2B emails and Holiday promotions; according to Kissmetrics emails marked as “Holiday Promotions” got an open rate of 17.9% during this period, while B2B promotions had an open rate of 26.4%.
Late-Night (7pm-10pm)
According to a MailerMailer, emails sent between the period 8pm to 11pm produced better open rates (up to 15.1%).
Midnight
Researchers at Experian discovered that overall response rate for emails was at its highest in the hours between midnight and 4am.
Know Your Audience
Despite all this data, there is still no one-size-fits all solution to the question about the optimal time to send out your emails. Your safest bet lies with knowing your audience: their devices, their preferences, their occupations and schedules, and then tailoring your campaign to accommodate that.
