How To Know The Best Email Marketing Send Times

There are a lot of things to consider when planning email marketing send times. It can greatly depend on who you are sending to as well as what you are sending. There are differences between B2B and B2C emails. In general, the highest open rates are at 10 AM, and 1 PM, and then a spike near 6 PM. People are mostly opening and reading through emails in the middle of the week.

Let’s break this down a little more.

• Best Time to Send B2B Email Marketing – On average 8-5 office employee are best sent mid-week around 10 AM.
• Best Time to Send B2C Email Marketing – On average there is not a big difference in open rates for specific days of the week for B2C emails.

Keep in mind that your results may differ from the averages. You should test different send times to see what will work best for you.

Once you are ready to test there are some metrics you need to keep and eye on.

Click-through rate – Click-through rate refers to the number of people who open a link or image in an email.

Click-to-open rate – When comparing the number of people that opened your email and the number that clicked on any links, this metric helps you identify which information in your emails is relevant to consumers.

Open rate – The open rate, is the percentage found from the number of subscribers who opened your email campaign.

Here are some questions you should be asking in order to best pick your email marketing send times:

1. Who: Who is your audience? Are they local to your time zone or spread out all over? Are they working normal business hours in an office or do they work from home?
2. What: What you are sending matters. Is it a newsletter or a coupon with a quick expiration date?
3. Where: Where are people opening your emails? Are they on mobile devices or on desktops?

Now that you know this information, you can start testing emails with your list.

How should you test?

• Send Times: Send emails to your list at different times until you find a time that works best for you.
• Send Days: Send emails to test the best day of the week for your list.

You may find that you need to stagger your sends based on trends in your data. Grouping people into like segments helps you deliver the email at the optimal time for each segment. Really look through your email history to find trends you can take advantage of. The more you know, the better targeting you can do. Are you ready to get started?

Have questions or need help? Contact us today! We are glad to help!