Timing is Everything: Selecting the Best Time to Send Your Email Message

When is the best time to send your email? Great question. In fact the time you decide to launch your campaign can have an impact on the overall results of your email campaign. This detail may not be as important as the audience you select, the subject line, or the list you are using, but it is a factor. But if you are working to get the maximum results and put everything in your favor then these are commonly accepted as the BEST times to launch your campaign.

The best days (in no particular order):

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays

What’s wrong with the rest of the days?

For business email, your audience is generally out of the office on Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday, your recipients are recovering from the weekend and will not be in business mode yet. They may have a number of things to do on this day and are not quite interested in offers or solicitations.

On Friday, they are interested in wrapping things up. If someone starts something on a Friday, it may be forgotten over the weekend.

So we are left with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as the best days.

You will want to avoid holidays or any major vacation times.

Does Time of Day Matter?

You want your message to reach your audience at a time when they are going to be most receptive. Deeper research has given me feedback from advertisers and list companies who say that even the time of day can play a role.

Many see it as important for your message to pop up, while the audience is at their computer. That polite “bing” elicits a Pavlovian response in most of us to quickly see what new and interesting mail has arrived. Perhaps it’s an order? Maybe it’s a note from a coworker. We are receptive and immediately ready to see who’s trying to contact us. This timing is ideal.

The majority of marketers try to ensure their email is not just sitting stagnate in the recipient’s inbox first thing in the morning, especially after a holiday. The reason is simple. People tend to have a morning ritual of “cleaning” their inbox from any spam that arrived overnight. You don’t want them to see your message when they are in a deleting frenzy, trying to find anything they can “clean up.”

Rather, you want your message to pop up while they are in the middle of a workday. This increases the chances that the recipient will stop and take a moment to read it.

What Are the Best Times to Send Email?

10:00 – 10:30 a.m.

and

1:00 – 1:30 p.m.

I urge you not to place too much emphasis on this area. It’s often very difficult to ensure the precise time your message goes out. And even if the message is launched at precisely 10 a.m. in one time zone, there are other time zones to consider.

It is good to have an idea of the general behavior of your audience before sending a message at an inappropriate time.

Does Time of Year Matter?

According to list brokers and publishers I’ve spoken with, the time of year does matter. You don’t want to catch someone just after a vacation when they have 200 waiting messages and are looking for stuff they can delete quickly. Most people seem to vacation during the summer months, especially July and August. Try to avoid that time.

Putting it in Perspective…

Don’t wait for the perfect time or you will never launch your email campaign. As you’ve probably experienced there are times during the week, month or year when you are extremely busy and not as receptive to offers or messages. Do your best to pick a time when your clients will be most likely to act, but don’t obsess about the launch time.