Best Time to Send an Email Newsletters: Timing Matters

Here is the article about the best time to send an email newsletter.

Those who send their e-mail newsletters at the best time and plan them skillfully can achieve a significantly higher open rate and conversion. This is shown by a new study from Constant contact

The email marketing specialist Constant contact has presented a new study that aims to provide answers on how to choose the best time as a sender of marketing emails and when to achieve the best open and click-through rates.

For this purpose, more than 230,000 newsletters from over 40 industries were examined, and the study took place from April 2019 to March 2020. Mailings sent in the periods between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. were evaluated because nighttime mailing usually has other reasons than targeting at a special time.

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Best Time to Send an Email Newsletters

Why Friday is a Good Day for Email Newsletters?

What’s clear is that while the right time to send email is no guarantee of achieving the ultimate reach, sending at a time that suits the product and target audience can go a long way toward reaching as many customers or prospects as possible. Across all sectors, the opening rate distributed over the working days shows only marginal differences.

The worst value is found on Wednesday, although this is the day on which comparatively many mailings are sent. At the weekend, both the opening rates and the volume of mailings drop. By contrast, open and click rates are particularly high on Fridays – and unsubscribe rates are no higher here than on other days.

In terms of opening rates, we do not find a consistent picture in terms of time – except that opening, rates are particularly high in the evening hours (7 p.m. to 9 p.m.), while the volumes of mailing newsletters sent and received are particularly high in the morning hours and in the early afternoon.

There could be a correlation here – when particularly few new emails arrive in the evening, attention to the few increases. Click rates are also particularly high in the evening hours – between 6 p.m. and midnight with a peak around 8 p.m. So if you want to launch a promotion or plan a special sale, for example, you can at least achieve something quickly by starting in the evening.

Email Success Depends on the Usage Scenario

Now to the individual sectors: Service providers are primarily a B2B industry, so most mailings arrive between 7 am and 3 pm. It can therefore be worthwhile to use the evening hours, which have a high click rate, although it is also more likely here that there is no longer any attention for professional matters.

In e-commerce, regardless of the industry, the middle of the day is a popular time for shipping. And yet it is precisely here that the evening opening rates are particularly high – something we are certainly all familiar with from our own shopping and surfing behavior.

In addition, there is a noticeable peak in sending on Wednesday mornings, but according to constant contact, this is related to a large retailer that circulates a large number of newsletters at this time on a segmented basis.

In the agencies sector, most newsletters also go out in the morning or early afternoon – and the click rate here is not significantly higher in the evening hours, because these are classic office mails. And yet, here too, it is important to try out whether you can achieve more success in the evening hours due to the lower number of competing mails.

The mailing times for the topic of health and fitness are also distributed over the morning and early afternoon hours, although it is precisely here that the opening rates are more evenly distributed – and good values can also be achieved at the weekend. The opening rates on Sundays are remarkably good throughout the day.

For newsletters from the media industry,  best time to send mail is on Mondays to Fridays in the morning or early afternoon – and again in the early evening. Open rates are also distributed quite well throughout the day. The click rates here are again high in the evening hours, which is why good results can also be achieved here.

Best Time to Send an Email: Conclusion.

With all the myths surrounding email marketing, it is no surprise that marketers still struggle to create effective campaigns. If you are also having similar problems, just remember that sending emails at the right time can make a world of difference. Try testing new email templates and subject lines for best results! Happy writing!