Email marketing: When is the right time to send marketing emails?

Developing your email marketing strategy involves a lot of moving parts, and one of those most important factors to consider is timing. Strategically thinking about when you deploy your messages can often be the difference between reaching your target audience at the precise time they’ll be willing to engage with you and failing to do so. 

By understanding the best time to send marketing emails, you can…

• Optimize your open rate
• Build your list with more email subscribers
• Use automation to program your send times, saving you time, money, and staffing resources

Let’s take a closer look at some keys of email marketing and examine the best time to send marketing emails. 

Key Email Marketing Terms to Keep in Mind

When building out your email strategy, here are a few key terms to be aware of. Understanding these will help you plan the timing of your emails much more effectively: 

• Open rate is the percentage of people who open an email you send. If you send an email to a list of 100 email addresses, and 10 of them open it, your open rate is 10%. 
• Click-through rate represents the percentage of people who opened your email and then clicked a specific link included within the message. This is an important metric when you have a link sending recipients to any offer or product.
• Bounce rate is the percentage of email addresses that don’t receive the email (or “bounce” it). This is typically due to a full inbox or an error in the email address. 
• CTA stands for your “call to action.” It’s the action you want your reader to take after reading your email.

The Value You Get Out of Marketing Emails (and Maintaining an Email List)

Before understanding why you should tap into the best times to send your marketing emails, let’s talk about why you want to build and nurture email as a part of your marketing campaign.

Email is one of the most consistently reliable forms of communication you’ll have with your audience. Other forms of communication come and go, but just about everyone checks their email. 

According to HubSpot, there are 4 billion daily email users globally, with 306 billion emails sent every day. The average open rate for emails is 19.8% while the average click-through and bounce rates are 11.3% and 9.4%, respectively. 

That means a lot of emails are sent and opened each day, and a lot of people use email as a communication mechanism. So why wouldn’t your business tap into it? 

Integrating email into your marketing approach is critical to its success. Whether you’re developing a campaign or sending a one-time message to promote an initiative or event, it can provide massive returns. 

That doesn’t make it easy, however. You must carefully consider what kind of content you include in your marketing communications emails, and when you send them. 

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best Time to Send Marketing Emails

When figuring out the best time to send an email, there are multiple factors you’ll need to take into account. Failure to do so can compromise the integrity of your email marketing campaign. 

It can also negatively impact your email open rates. As you build email campaigns into your overall digital marketing approach, here are some of the factors to consider to maximize click-through rates: 

• Who are your target demographics? 
• What time of day does your target audience check their email? 
• Do you want to target weekdays or weekends? 
• At what time of day will your offer be received most favorably? 
• What’s the best day of the week? 

Let’s drill down on each question: 

Who Are Your Target Demographics? 

This is where you ask questions about who your customer is. How old are they, what gender are they, where are they located, and other considerations all factor into determining your target demographics. This is a great time to utilize or build a buyer persona.

What Time of Day Does Your Target Audience Check Their Email?

Understanding when your customer checks their email will dictate when it’s ideal to send yours. You need to catch them at the right time, otherwise, they may not even see your message.

Do You Want to Target Weekdays or Weekends?

When you send your email during the week will greatly depend on what kind of marketing emails you’re sending. 

For example, if you’re a business consultant looking to sell consulting services to professional clients, targeting weekday mornings seems like a good choice. 

Conversely, if you’re a retailer alerting your customers to great discounts at your store, the weekend may be the right time to key in on them. 

The type of company you operate will determine when it’s best to send your email.

At What Time of Day Will Your Offer Be Received Most Favorably? 

Remember to account for things like the time zones of your target audience when preparing marketing emails to send, but also think of the time of day your offer might be received most favorably. 

An email sent at 9:00 a.m. might be received differently than one sent near the end of the business day at 4:45 p.m. Remember that your prospective customer will interpret messages differently at various points throughout the day. 

What’s the Best Day of the Week?

Just like the time you send your marketing emails, the day also matters. A Monday message can yield a much different response than a message sent on Saturday. 

Your Subject Line Matters

Sending your email at the right time is critical, but crafting persuasive, engaging copy is also a big part of successful email marketing campaigns. 

Of course, no one will read your copy if they don’t actually open the email. 

That’s where your email subject line comes into play. It should compel the reader to open your email and investigate its promise. 

Subject lines should be short and invite the recipient to want to discover more information. Subject lines with the highest open rates are the ones that appeal to the reader’s natural curiosity. 

Tell your readers you have the solution to their common problem. Show them you understand what they’re going through. 

A/B Testing Matters

It’s also critical to note that there is no perfect time to send an email. Sure, there are best practices you can follow that may vary depending on your industry, but standards can change. 

Maintain a flexible approach to your email times. Engage in A/B testing. 

As it relates to email marketing, A/B testing requires splitting your email list into two parts. Then, send your marketing emails to each part at different times to see which ones get the better response rate. 

You can use this strategy for more than just figuring out the best time to send an email, however. You can use it to test subject lines or body copy as well. 

The Best Time to Send Marketing Emails

Keep in mind that the best time for YOU to send marketing emails will vary depending on the factors mentioned above. But there are some trends to keep in mind as you develop your email marketing strategy, via HubSpot: 

• For B2B marketers, data shows the best time to target a 9-5 employee is midweek around 10:00 a.m. If your target audience is entrepreneurs, the best time is Saturday at 10:00 a.m. 
• B2C emails have less conclusive evidence on the best time to send, but optimal performance seems to comes from sending them Saturday at midnight. 

What specific day should you send emails? Well, there isn’t one day of the week that’s better than all the others – but there is one you should strongly avoid. 

According to LinkedIn, research shows Monday is the worst day to send emails, whether it’s a stand-alone message or an email newsletter. That’s when inboxes are at their fullest, and people are looking to clear them out. 

The same research shows that generally speaking, the best time to send marketing emails is the middle of the week. Emails sent mid-week tend to have higher open rates, particularly when they’re sent during work hours. 

Steer clear of the early morning – 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. is the wrong time to send messages. You’ll see high open rates on your email blasts if you send your email around lunchtime (for example, noon – 1:00 p.m., EST).