Have you ever met your perfect match who’s moving out of the state next Saturday or just not into relationships at the moment? If you have, you know what people mean by saying you not only have to meet the right person but do it at the right time. It’s the same for many things in life, including emails in an inbox.
Regardless of an email’s purpose, first, it needs to be spotted and opened. If the recipient does it, you are more likely to get a sale. So what you ultimately want are more opens and more click-throughs. However, it turns out that almost 20% of all email campaigns are opened in the very first hour after they’re sent, and almost a third of all the clicks happen at the same time. So each passing hour means fewer chances for success.
We have detailed articles about email open rate (OR) and click-through rate (CTR). These metrics depend on various factors from the quality of your contact list to whether you use emojis in subject lines. The choice of the right day and time when you send your messages is also essential. Emails sent at the right time will likely get more opens and clicks, which means more sales.
OK, moving on to the data on timing.
Let’s go from bigger to smaller and first examine the days of the week.
Folks at GetResponse analyzed 7 billion emails sent throughout 2022. Here’s what they found:
According to their study, there’s not much difference between weekdays in terms of email marketing metrics, especially the click-through rate. The open rate drops a bit on weekends which is totally understandable.
What’s interesting is that the open rate and click-through rate are the highest on Tuesdays. With click-to-open keeping pace, according to GetResponse, Tuesday seems to be a solid option for starting with your email campaigns.
However, the difference between open rates on Tuesday and Friday is small. And in previous years, Friday held the title of the best day of the week to send emails. So if you are sending promotional campaigns or your regular updates on Friday, you don’t have to change things. In fact, at the moment we are trying the Friday option at Selzy, sending our blog digest on Fridays:
By the way, you can subscribe to our newsletter too, and get emails with helpful email marketing advice, tips on how to use our service, and links to the hottest articles every two weeks. Plus, every subscriber receives a PDF of our epic list-building guide for free 🔥
Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) analyzed engagement metrics of the platform’s users across industries:
According to Brevo, most email opens happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the most click-throughs are actually linked to Wednesdays with Tuesdays holding the second place. This is consistent with the previous research.
Researchers at Brevo theorize that on Mondays most people are too busy at work or other commitments. And on Tuesday, when the first day of the week is over, people have time to dive into their inboxes.
The most recent research on the list. In October 2023, HubSpot surveyed 150+ marketing and advertising professionals in the US. Here are the day-of-the-week results:
This data proves that Tuesday is the best day of the week to send marketing emails. However, the second most popular option is Monday which is unique to HubSpot’s research.
Now let’s turn to the time of day.
This yearly research tracked the open rate, click-through rate, and click-to-open rate alongside the percentage of messages. Unlike the day of the week chart, the metrics here have multiple spikes and drops:
Looks like the best-performing hours are somewhere in the early morning around 4-6 am. Then the line steadies and the next time worth attention is late evening — the open rate drops but there are many more clicks per message. The optimal evening time frame is between 5 and 7 pm, and the highest click rate coinciding with one of the lowest open rates is 11 pm.
This email engagement by hour-of-day chart shows that the click rate is almost identical throughout the day while the open rate has highs and lows:
There are two options with the best engagement prospects, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Both opens and clicks peak at 10 am and then opens spike at 3 pm while clicks — at 4 pm. As Brevo experts theorize, people most probably check their inboxes right after starting work and later just before they leave for the day.
We’ve seen the research data, but what do email marketers think about the best time to send emails? Here is the HubSpot chart:
Based on this chart, there are three time frames considered to be the best ones by email marketers. The time most marketers believe to be the best to send emails is between 9:01 am and 12 pm. Slightly fewer marketers, 26%, indicated the next time slot — 12:01 pm and 3 pm. The third popular answer is 6:01 am to 9 am.
Does the best time to send emails depend on who they are intended for — employees or clients? Yes, such a difference exists.
For B2B email marketing, emails are best sent to office employees mid-week between 8 am and 12 pm, so that they view your messages at the top of their inboxes. You can also send it when people are considering taking a break around 1-2 pm.
Entrepreneurs and executives open emails more frequently, so the day of the week matters less. The best time for these individuals based on open and click rates is on Saturday at 10 AM.
Studies suggest that there’s no big difference in open rates for specific days of the week for B2C emails. One survey suggests the same morning time from 9 am to 12 pm. You can also use any of the advice from the studies above and start sending after work hours — between 5 pm and 9 pm — when people are ready to consider your products or services.
There are also some tricks you can use. For example, you can send follow-up emails on the same day and time that your customers placed their last order because chances are that’s when they are in front of their computers.
You can also automatically resend the emails that were not previously opened.
But wait, why does the data sometimes differ from study to study? Well, that’s the spoiler alert we talked about before.
In fact, the best day and time depend on dozens of factors: the industry you’re working in, the content of your messages, the audience, the frequency of mailings, the devices users open their emails on more often. There is no single recipe for everyone.
So what to do?
For that, you need to create your audience’s personas. Ask yourself the following questions:
Then imagine yourself in their shoes. Synchronize mailings with the schedule of your clients. For example, as we already know, entrepreneurs are more likely to read emails during their lunch breaks on weekdays, while ordinary workers get to them early in the morning on weekdays or during lunch breaks. Younger people are more active in the evenings, etc.
What about people in different time zones?
For superior results, segment your contact list by geography to determine the subscriber’s time zone. Then you have two main choices:
The type of content also affects opens and CTR. What comes to mind:
What to do when there are several, sometimes conflicting, opinions on when is the best time to send an email?
Test, test, test. There’s no other way to find out what works best for you other than testing.
The best time to send emails is individual for each business sector and each purpose. You can start with what statistics say: for example, Tuesday-Thursday at 9 am or 4 pm. But after that, we recommend trying different days and times of sending — chances are, something different will suit your audience better.
The point of A/B testing is that you send two versions of the same email to two subscriber groups of approximately the same composition. Emails should be exactly the same, except for the day or time of sending.
After each test, make conclusions using email marketing software. For example, at Selzy, we have a report that among other things allows you to determine the most popular reading time, as well as to understand when the majority of the recipients opened your campaign:
You can also schedule a message by specifying the date and time. As a result, your newsletter will be sent at the right time without your participation.
You can improve on opens and click rates by considering other aspects. We advise you to pay attention to:
The best (and worst) day and time for sending emails is a rather controversial topic. On the one hand, some studies show that messages are opened more often on certain days of the week. On the other hand, it is worth understanding that all subscribers are different and it will not be possible to find a convenient time for everyone.
However, the sending day and time can be personalized for different subscribers. A few tips on how to do this:
Experiment. Test. Analyze.
This article was originally published in November 2021 and was updated in November 2023 to make it more relevant and comprehensive.
