All companies, whether big or small, need to figure out the best way to contact and interact with their audience. The internet stands as a powerful tool to communicate with customers. Email campaigns allow businesses to inform customers and email subscribers about products and deals, so finding the right time for email sending can affect the results of email campaigns. A good email scheduling tool comes in handy for combating this. It allows you to schedule your emails to be delivered at just the right time for recipients.
The right time can vary on the audience, but overall, these statistics show information that can help you make the right decision with your email campaigns. If a company just sends out emails with no thought, then they could go unread and unnoticed.
The Best Days to Send Email Campaigns
There are two factors to keep in mind when sending out emails: the day of the month and the day of the week. By looking at these two statistics, it can make it easier to identify a time frame to send out your email campaign.
As shown in the picture above, the 5th, 10th, and 12th have the highest open rates, and the 7th, 12th, and 19th have the highest click rates. By looking at this information, the 5th, 7th, and 12th become the top priority dates for sending out an email campaign, because they have the highest average for both open and click rates. To make it easier to see this, the image above highlighted those dates in green.
For those who do not know, open rates are the percentage of emails opened in a campaign and click rates are the percentage of links clicked in those emails. Both of these factors are necessary for a successful campaign, because customers need to open the email and click on the links to see the information and to make any purchases.
However, the data goes even further by providing which day of the week will yield the best results for email campaigns. The information below shows that Thursdays are the best days for email campaigns followed by Tuesday and Wednesday.
This information considers the best days based on open and click rates. This means that if you choose Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, it increases your odds for overall success in your email campaign.
By keeping this information in mind, the best time to send out an email campaign is near the beginning of the month, but the middle of the week. However, the next natural question is why these days and dates work the best.
The Beginning of the Month
It’s important to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and to consider how they feel. Imagine that you work a nine-to-five job Monday through Friday (maybe you do). This is the standard schedule for people to work. It’s important to consider how a person feels during different days and times.
The beginning of the month works as a fresh new start for people. Not only is it a new month, but most people get paid every two weeks on the first and third Friday of the month. They will be more open to purchases and campaigns, because they have more money available during this period.
However, if you send the email at the end of the month, odds are they are paying various bills. If people are stressing about money, the last thing they want to do is open an email trying to convince them to make a purchase.
Lots of companies like to give paychecks on the first Friday of the month and the third Friday of the month. With this in mind, it makes sense for people to open more email campaigns during these times because the 5th, 7th, and 12th are likely days where customers just received a paycheck and are expecting another one in the coming week.
The Middle of the Week
Some people may wonder why email campaigns are more effective at the beginning of the month but not at the beginning of the week. Consider how the consumer feels. There’s the stereotypical Monday morning where people have to drag themselves out of bed because they just finished their weekend and now they have to work again.
Sometimes, if a person doesn’t like their job, they might dread working and start the week off in a sad, annoyed, or irritated mood. If they see an email campaign during this time and are in such a mood, the odds of a person ignoring the campaign increase. Why would they want to purchase something when they didn’t even want to leave their bed that morning?
Once it gets closer to the middle of the week, people are back to their usual routine. They already conquered eight hours of work on Monday, so it only gets easier from there. Tuesday and Wednesday come around, and people are in a better mood by then. However, when Thursday comes, their mood continues to improve, because they know that the weekend is coming up.
Thursday brings this anticipation for the weekend, but Friday brings some anxiousness. Once Friday hits, people want the day to end as soon as possible so they can enjoy their weekend. They don’t want to open emails and consider purchases, because their mind is focused on relaxing and enjoying the weekend.
In short, the middle of the week works as the sweet spot because people are past the Monday drag, but the weekend isn’t consuming their thoughts. It’s a good inbetween zone to catch people in a better mood to buy your products or to read your emails.
The Best Time to Send Email Campaigns
Finding the right time to send out an email campaign is just as important as finding the right day. Even if you send it on the right day, if you’re sending emails at two in the morning to middle aged people, they are probably going to miss the campaign. These statistics provide the overall best times to send emails.
By looking at the picture above, you can see that 8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. are the recommended times for sending emails. This is because these times have both the most open and click rates, as well as 5 p.m. having a high click rate.
At first glance, it may seem strange that these are the times that work best for email campaigns. After all, aren’t most people working nine-to-five jobs? If that’s the case, why would they open emails during these hours when they are working?
Before and During Work
It may seem strange at first that 8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 4 p.m. are the ideal times to send out an email campaign, but it does make sense.
Since most jobs start at 9 a.m., a person might wake up at 7 a.m. or so. They get ready for the day, have breakfast, then many people will check their phones for emails and texts. If they have a 45 minute commute or less, people may check their emails on their phone to see if there’s anything new.
For 1 p.m., most people will be on their lunch break. There’s not much to do during lunch break except eat and then to go on the phone. People will likely check their emails at this time, because they have nothing else to do.
4 p.m. works well for college students and people that work at a computer all day. When 4 p.m. rolls around, most college students finished their classes and have time to check their emails. For those working at a computer, their day is coming to a close, so they check their emails for anything else to do, since they may be done with their assignments for the day. While they’re at it, they may open other emails they come across.
These times get the most clicks because people check their emails at these times. Each time occurs when people aren’t as busy, so they can afford to pay attention to something else. Since they can check at these times, they can see the email campaign before it gets flooded in the hundreds of other emails they may receive during the day.
Final Points
While these times are the overall best times to send out email campaign, keep in mind that it may vary depending on your audience. Maybe your target audience is teenagers or young adults, so they might not be awake at 8 a.m. and they may stay awake as late as midnight. Not only that, but since many of them don’t have a nine-to-five job, they may be more willing to look at their emails during the weekends.
It’s important to keep your target audience and consumers in mind while sending out email campaigns. Keep track of your own statistics to see what works best for your company. This article gives you a good baseline to start from and to know what information will help you identify the best time and day for an email campaign.
While the information does specify dates, days, and times, please keep in mind holidays. People are less likely to respond on a holiday, so it’s okay to move the email campaign from the 5th on a Thursday to the 4th on a Wednesday if a holiday occurs on that Thursday. Keep these outliers and other points in mind when you make decisions for your campaign.
The information in this article will help you to start on your email campaigns and to find good days and times to send them out. It will help you see success in your campaigns and it will help you collect data to help your company succeed in the future.
What days and times have you seen work for your target audience? When do you tend to respond to emails that you receive? Feel free to type your answers and thoughts in the comments section.
Interesting insights – thanks for sharing. Will have to implement this on some level and relay the results. Cheers guys!