The Punchbowl Trends Blog

One of the key decisions email marketers must make is what day and time to send their campaigns. This entails an understanding of the best time to send an email as it relates to your customer and industry.

Consumers are more likely to open product marketing emails Friday through Sunday, when they have more free time over the weekend. Think about it this way—if your email includes a coupon, is mom more likely to open and remember it during the work/school week or right before her Saturday afternoon errands?

B2B emails see the highest open rates when sent Tuesday through Thursday. This is because Mondays are often booked full with meetings and employees are less likely to be thinking about new business connections on Fridays as their thoughts drift to the weekend.

The time of day a marketing email is sent greatly impacts its chances of being opened. A study by Kissmetrics suggests that certain types of emails are more likely to be opened at different times of the day. For instance, the 12:00-2:00pm time slot is best for news and entertainment emails, 5:00-7:00pm is prime timing for B2B promotions and 7-10:00pm is the best window for consumer promotions. Many people check their email between 8-10:00am as part of their morning ritual; however, inboxes are also very crowded at that time.

Within the first hour after the message is delivered, 23% of email opens occur, so timing is an important consideration. If your brand has a national or international presence, don’t forget to segment your distribution list by time zone.

When sending email marketing to moms, consider when she’ll have time to read your message. For example, Punchbowl usually sends emails in the morning. This works for us because an email may remind a user that they need to send a card that day or plan for an upcoming event. Moms that need to plan their child’s birthday party see our email at the start of their day, and can save time using Punchbowl’s party planning features instead of spending the day doing party-related errands.

Many moms like to have a regular routine in the morning, and checking their email is a part of that process. The use of smartphones also impacts the best time to send marketing emails. A study of 5,000 moms by BabyCenter found that 78% of moms use their smartphone to filter incoming emails. Additionally, the most common time of day for moms to check email on their smartphones is between 8am and 10am, with a peak at 9am of 18%.

One Kings Lane, a flash-sale site, sends their emails just before 11:00am each day and the company’s new sales begin at 11:00am. This creates a sense of urgency for consumers when they open the email, generating a better response than if the email was sent the night before. Loyal customers know when the sale starts each day and the email prompts them to check the site immediately and start shopping.

Brands also need to consider the frequency of their marketing emails. The best strategy is very dependent on your industry and the message of your emails. Informative emails can be sent more frequently than product-based sales emails without annoying recipients, for example. Consider giving your distribution list subscription preferences as well. These often include the options to only be notified with coupons, only once per month or week, and only for specified topics. It’s necessary to find an appropriate balance between overwhelming or annoying your email recipients and emailing so infrequently that you’re forgotten.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to the question of the best time to send an email. However, timing matters. Finding the best time of week and day to send your marketing emails will make your brand’s marketing campaigns more effective. The right answer for your brand depends on your customer segments, type of industry, and type of email. Of course, even perfectly timed emails are ineffective without quality content. To determine the success of your email marketing campaigns, it’s important for your brand to utilize tracking and analysis software. Collect the data and apply it to your email strategy to optimize your email marketing efforts. 

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