The Best Time to Send Marketing Emails for Maximum Engagement

If you're looking to maximize the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, timing is everything. Sending an email at the wrong time can mean it gets lost in the inbox clutter, never opened, or even ignored. On the other hand, sending it at the right time can significantly boost your open rates, click-through rates, and overall engagement.

So, when is the best time to send marketing emails? While there is no one-size-fits-all answer, research and data can give you a clear indication of when your emails are most likely to make an impact. In this article, we'll explore the best practices for email timing, the factors to consider, and how you can optimize your email campaigns for success.

The Timing Dilemma in Email Marketing

As email marketers, one of the biggest challenges we face is making sure our emails are opened and engaged with. While crafting compelling content is important, the timing of your email can be just as critical to its success.

Imagine spending hours creating the perfect email campaign, only for it to land in your subscriber's inbox at a time when they're too busy to open it. Or worse, it gets buried under a flood of other emails. Timing is often overlooked, but it plays a key role in your email marketing performance.

Research shows that sending emails at suboptimal times can lead to lower open rates, but understanding optimal sending times for email newsletters can help improve your strategy:

• Lower open rates: Your emails might not even get opened if they arrive when your audience isn’t checking their inbox.

• Lower click-through rates: Even if they are opened, timing can affect how willing recipients are to engage with the content or click your CTA.

• Higher unsubscribe rates: Send too frequently at inconvenient times, and you risk annoying your subscribers.

The result? Missed opportunities for engagement and conversions, and an underperforming email marketing strategy.

Why Email Timing Matters for Engagement

Timing isn’t just about when your email is sent; it’s about when your audience is most likely to engage with it, which is why understanding the best times and days for sending email campaigns is crucial. Here’s why email timing plays a crucial role in the success of your marketing campaigns:

1. Audience Behavior Varies by Time of Day

Different people check their emails at different times. Understanding your audience's behavior is critical. For example:

• Early morning: Many people check their inboxes as part of their morning routine, making it a prime time to reach them before they start their workday.

• Late morning to early afternoon: After getting through morning meetings or tasks, this window is often seen as a sweet spot for higher engagement.

• Evening: Some audiences, particularly those working in creative industries or with flexible schedules, may engage more with emails after traditional work hours.

By aligning your email send times with these behavioral patterns, you can increase the likelihood of your emails being seen, opened, and clicked.

2. Time Zones Make a Difference

If your email list consists of subscribers across different regions or countries, time zone considerations are essential. Sending an email at 9 AM in New York may work for subscribers in the Eastern Time Zone, but it will arrive much earlier in Los Angeles and later in London or Berlin.

Using tools that allow you to schedule emails based on the recipient’s time zone can ensure that your message reaches them at the optimal time, regardless of their location.

3. Weekdays vs. Weekends

Research consistently shows that certain days tend to perform better than others, and you can find more about the optimal times and days to send emails in various studies. For example:

• Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays tend to be the best days to send marketing emails, as they avoid the Monday backlog and the Friday wind-down.

• Weekends: While weekends might not be ideal for all audiences, certain industries (like retail or entertainment) may see higher engagement on Saturdays or Sundays when people have more free time.

A Brand’s Email Timing Success

Let’s look at the case of an eCommerce brand, EcoHome, that sells sustainable home products. Initially, their email marketing campaigns were sent out at random times throughout the day, with inconsistent results. They noticed that while their email content was strong, open rates and engagement remained stagnant.

EcoHome decided to analyze their audience's behavior and found that their customers were most engaged between 10 AM and 12 PM on weekdays. Using these insights, they adjusted their email timing strategy and began sending emails at the same time each week, during their customers' peak engagement hours.

The results were impressive, especially when considering the optimal timing for sending marketing emails based on audience behavior. Within just one month, their open rates increased by 25%, and click-through rates rose by 15%. By simply optimizing the time of day they sent their emails, EcoHome was able to significantly improve their email performance, leading to higher sales and customer retention.

How to Determine the Best Time to Send Your Marketing Emails

Now that you understand how important email timing is, it's essential to know how to figure out the optimal time for your business and explore innovative marketing strategies to complement your email efforts. Finding the right time to send emails requires a combination of data analysis, testing, and understanding your audience. Here’s how you can determine the best time to send marketing emails:

1. Analyze Your Audience’s Behavior

Your email marketing platform holds a wealth of data that can help you pinpoint the most effective send times. Start by diving into your email analytics to understand when your subscribers are most likely to engage. Look for patterns in:

• Open Rates: Identify the hours and days when your open rates are highest. This data is often available in the "email performance" section of your platform.

• Click-Through Rates (CTR): Engagement isn’t just about opening emails. Tracking click-through rates gives you insight into when recipients are not just opening, but also taking action within your emails.

• Response Times: How long after sending an email do most of your recipients engage with it? This information can help refine your timing strategy even further.

For example, if you notice that most of your audience opens emails between 10 AM and 12 PM, this might be your sweet spot for scheduling future campaigns.

2. Test Different Send Times

No matter how much data you gather, testing is crucial for finding the perfect send time for your emails. By running A/B tests, you can experiment with different send times to see what works best for your audience. Here's how to do it effectively:

• Choose a Control Group: Select a small, representative portion of your email list to run tests on different days and at different times.

• Test Days of the Week: Start by sending your emails on different days—Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays often yield higher engagement for B2B emails, but B2C businesses may see success on weekends, when their customers have more free time.

• Test Times of the Day: Once you’ve established the best days, test the times. Early mornings, mid-mornings, and late afternoons can all perform differently depending on your audience’s habits.

Use the results to refine your strategy and optimize your email campaign schedule based on what performs best for your audience.

3. Segment Your Audience by Time Zone

If your audience is spread across multiple time zones, you’ll need to tailor your email sends to make sure they arrive at a convenient time for everyone. Many email marketing platforms, such as Mailchimp or HubSpot, allow you to schedule emails based on your recipient’s local time.

For example, if you’re a U.S.-based company with a significant customer base in Europe, sending emails at 9 AM Eastern Standard Time might work for your U.S. audience but could be inconvenient for your European subscribers. Scheduling emails to send automatically at 9 AM local time for each recipient ensures that your email lands when they’re most likely to check their inbox.

4. Consider Audience Segmentation Beyond Time Zones

Time zone segmentation is crucial, but don't stop there. Segmenting your email list based on behavioral factors can reveal more precise timings for different groups. For example:

• New Subscribers: People who recently signed up for your email list may be more engaged in the first few weeks. Sending welcome emails or exclusive offers at key moments (e.g., shortly after signup or on certain days) can boost engagement.

• Inactive Subscribers: For subscribers who haven’t engaged with your emails in a while, try sending re-engagement campaigns at different times of the day to see if this sparks renewed interest.

Tailoring your email timing based on audience behavior allows you to further optimize your strategy and target your messaging more effectively.

5. Account for Industry-Specific Patterns

Different industries often see different patterns when it comes to email engagement. For instance, if you're in the B2B space, early mornings and early afternoons on weekdays tend to perform best, as people often check their emails during breaks or in-between meetings. For B2C businesses, weekends or later in the evening might work better, as customers may have more time to browse leisurely.

Consider running a benchmarking analysis against industry standards to see how your email timing stacks up. Tools like Campaign Monitor and Mailchimp provide industry-specific benchmarks for open rates and engagement times that can serve as a reference point.

6. Use Automated Workflows for Timely, Triggered Emails

Automation is a powerful tool for ensuring that your emails reach recipients at the most effective times based on their behavior. Here’s how you can use automated workflows to optimize timing:

• Behavioral Triggers: Send emails based on specific actions your customers take, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or abandoning their cart. For example, an abandoned cart reminder sent within 24 hours can recover lost sales by reaching customers when they’re still considering the purchase.

• Dynamic Segmentation: Automate follow-ups based on the behavior of each subscriber. For example, if a customer opens but doesn’t click on a product email, send a follow-up with additional product details or a related offer within a couple of days.

• Lifecycle Emails: Welcome emails, post-purchase sequences, or loyalty program notifications are perfect for automation and can be part of effective customer retention strategies.

Automation ensures that your emails are always timely and relevant, increasing the chances of engagement.

7. Keep an Eye on Trends and Seasonality

While general timing principles apply, there are seasonal trends and periodic shifts in engagement that you need to account for:

• Holiday Campaigns: During the holiday season, email volume increases, and so does competition for your audience’s attention. In this case, sending earlier in the day or experimenting with off-peak times (such as weekends or evenings) might yield better results.

• Promotional Campaigns: If you’re launching a promotion, it’s essential to factor in the urgency of your offer. Emails sent just before a sale ends often have high open rates, but make sure your audience still has time to act.

Pay attention to trends over time, and adjust your email send times to align with customer behavior during key events and seasons.

8. Monitor and Adapt Regularly

It’s important to note that the best time to send marketing emails may change as your business and audience evolve, so staying updated on the best times for sending emails is essential.

• Keep Testing: Don’t assume that once you’ve found a winning time, you’re set for life. Continue running A/B tests to stay on top of shifts in customer behavior.

• Adapt to New Tools: As email marketing platforms introduce new features, like AI-driven send-time optimization, take advantage of these tools to fine-tune your campaigns.

Offer: How Unblocked Brands’ Passport Solution Can Boost Your Email Engagement

While timing is key to email success, combining it with push notifications can further elevate your engagement rates. Unblocked Brands’ Passport solution allows you to send personalized push notifications without requiring a mobile app, making it easier for your audience to stay connected with your brand.

With Passport, you can:

• Send timely notifications that complement your email campaigns, ensuring your message gets seen by following best practices for push notifications.

• Increase engagement through push notifications that reach users directly on their devices.

• Reduce email overload by using a mix of push notifications and emails to balance communication and engagement.

Passport’s real-time push notifications ensure your message reaches your customers at the right time, driving higher engagement and better results.

Response: Ready to Improve Your Email Timing Strategy?

Finding the best time to send marketing emails can significantly impact your campaign’s performance. By analyzing your audience’s behavior, testing different send times, and optimizing based on your findings, you can achieve higher open and click-through rates—and ultimately, more conversions.

Sign up for a free trial of Unblocked Brands’ Passport solution at unblockedbrands.com and enhance your engagement strategy today with real-time push notifications and personalized marketing.