Have you ever wondered when the best time to send marketing emails might be? It’s a key component of a successful email marketing campaign. Especially when email marketing is integral to your overall marketing strategy with a large email list ready to go, even a small increase in open rates creates more sales opportunities.
So, when is the best time of day to send email newsletters? Or what about the best time of the week to send marketing emails? Read on for data-driven answers to your most important time-based email marketing questions.
A study conducted by Experian Marketing Services indicates that Tuesday is the absolute best day of the week to send out marketing emails.
Mailchimp (a popular email software) corroborates that info, saying that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are the best days.
Wordstream‘s data, on the other hand, suggests that the best day to send emails is actually Thursday, with Tuesday and Wednesday mornings being the worst days and times to send emails.
Sendinblue analyzed their user data and discovered that Tuesday or Thursday is often the best day to send emails for most businesses, including E-commerce, SaaS, Professional Services, and NGOs.
The reason is most likely that people are too inundated with tasks on Mondays to really pay attention to additional email outreach.
However, this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Campaign Monitor found that Monday has the highest open rates, followed by Tuesday and Thursday. However, Tuesday’s emails have the highest click-through rate, and click-to-open rate, making Tuesday a better option if you want more than a quick browse.
By Friday, they’re more focused on the upcoming weekend than on your marketing email. And on the weekend, they’re too busy living life to pay much attention to work-based emails.
Overall, Tuesdays through Thursdays seem to have a 10-20% higher open rate from Mondays and Fridays, and about a 250% higher open rate compared to Saturdays and Sundays.
Email newsletters are slightly different from other marketing emails as they are designed to keep your audience up-to-date on the latest news, events, products, and sales from your company.
Research shows that people today want to receive updates from companies and brands they value, as much as twice per week.
Similar to the broader category of overall marketing emails, newsletters get the best open rates Tuesdays through Thursdays.
However, if your company is a lifestyle brand, sports-based, or otherwise something related to downtime, Fridays and weekends may not be a bad choice. After all, people want to follow their favorite events, news, and hobbies when they’re away from work.
In any case, it’s best to send emails up to once per week, or as infrequently as once per month. More than that can turn people away, while less than that can cause your brand message to lose momentum with your audience. If you’re unsure which exact day is best for your brand, try sending emails on each day with the highest open rates, then tracking results to duplicate from there.
The times of day that are recommended to send an email newsletter depend on which day the e-newsletter is being sent. We say Tuesdays through Thursdays are the best days to send one. Of those days, here are the best times of day to send an email newsletter:
Of course, choosing which day to send your marketing emails and newsletters only gets you half of the way. You also need to figure out the best times of day to get your message across.
“The best-performing hours are usually somewhere in the early morning. The global results show that this can be as early as 4 a.m.”
Michael Leszcynski, Head of Content Marketing at GetResponse
It turns out that as a general rule, sending emails to people during transition times in their day gives you the greatest chance to optimize open rates. People often use their spare moments of transition to check their phones and messages.
If your email happens to show up right when they’re taking a break, getting to work, or heading out for the day, you have a good chance of piquing their curiosity.
To help you more specifically match your email marketing times to your choice of day, here are the best transition times to reach people, by day of the week.
Mondays are a bit tricky since people often spend much of their morning simply going through all the tasks that piled up from the previous week (and even over the weekend) which require their immediate attention. However, you may be able to reach people right at 8 AM just before they get really moving on their priorities for the day. If they open an email first thing in the morning, even if they get really busy thereafter, they might start thinking about your email offer throughout the day.
Another great time to send your emails is Mondays at 11 AM, because people may need a mental break just before transitioning to lunch. And your email message could provide that mental break for your audience.
The great thing about Tuesdays is that since it is the highest day for email marketing open rates – no matter which study you look at – it’s hard to go wrong with the time of day you choose. By Tuesdays, people are already through all their Monday rush work and have a bit more leisure to select which direction they’d like to go next with their workdays.
Data does indicate, however, that the optimal times to send emails on Tuesdays are 9 AM-10 AM, according to SendinBlue‘s data. Before and after work, people shift their focus to their home and hobbies, and email marketing loses some effect.
Wednesday does appear to break the normal rule of sending emails for the best effect during normal business hours. The reason may be that by the middle of the week, people want a little mental break from work, and are therefore more likely to look into a new offer. In any case, Wednesday emails work well as early as 6 AM, all the way to 8 PM.
For Thursday, the best time of day to send is between 8 AM – 9 AM. This data is directly from Wordstream’s data collection. During Thursday mornings, their email open rate is almost at 25% (which is pretty decent for general marketing emails).
If your company is a lifestyle brand, you could certainly see success with an email campaign right at 5 PM, as people are transitioning out of work into their weekend mode. If your company is not a lifestyle brand, you may consider trying to reach people right at the start of their day, or even earlier- between 4 AM to 7 AM.
Saturdays and Sundays are a lot like Fridays when it comes to email open rates and trends – but more so. People like to “check out” from work on these days, so business-related messages aren’t likely to get checked.
However, as with Fridays, if your company provides something people love to spend time with as a hobby, or event they follow, weekends can be the perfect time for your outreach.
Ultimately, the best time to send email newsletters depends on your own research, data collection, and optimization. However, if you need a place to start, the absolute best day and time, statistically, is Tuesdays between 8 AM and 9 AM. At the very worst, you’ll be able to get a baseline open rate for your email marketing campaign, and something to compare future A/B testing against.
Email marketing requires diligence and patience. It’s a form of marketing that heavily benefits from tracked results on open rates and click-throughs.
Whichever days and times you start with for your outreach emails, be sure to take notes on your results. That way you can look at trends over time, find opportunities for different days and times to try next, and optimize. Even a small increase in open rates can have a profound impact on your marketing results.
Statistically, the best day of the week to send an email promotion is on Tuesdays between 8 AM and 9 AM.
The best time of day to send a marketing email on Mondays through Thursdays is between 8 AM and 10 AM. On Fridays, Tailwind suggests scheduling to send your marketing email between 4 AM and 7 AM.
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