Looking to improve your email open rates? Email campaigns are only as successful as the rates at which they are opened, read, and convert to sales. They say timing is everything and while it might not be the only important part of your campaign, it can certainly make a difference what time your message arrives.
In their annual analysis of the two billion emails sent through their marketing automation platform, Omnisend divulge some interesting data about the best timing for emails.
Larger companies and well-known brands often create campaigns on a weekly basis, whereas a smaller organization might be happy with one campaign per month. It’s understandable that some marketeers select their timing instinctively, but here we will help you make a more informed decision based on some tried and tested tactics.
For effective planning, it is important to note that the time of day can make quite a difference to your open rates and certain days of the week and month can be better than others. Let’s dive in and share some of the findings that will help you make the most of your marketing efforts.
Which Day of the Month?
Various research has shown that the first two weeks of the month tend to yield better results that the last two. While it is impossible to pin point the exact reasons for these findings, it would make sense that payday might factor in there somewhere. Typically, people get paid in the first week of the month or in the middle. A lucky few still have money left at the end of the month to go shopping online.
Which Day of the Week?
If you’re distributing a newsletter once a week, it would be useful to figure out whether there is a specific day of the week that will always provide the best click-through rate. It would seem that most of the research has come to the same conclusion and the winner is… Thursday! (closely followed by Tuesday).
Note though, this this is determined by a combination of open and click-through rates. We have to be careful that we compare apples to apples in these metrics. It turns out that Sunday might actually have a better click rate (compared to a simple open rate). Perhaps we are more likely to open an email on Thursday, while we are in front of our computer, but most people would have more time to click through and browse the website at the weekend.
Based only on the open rate, Wednesday is the winner. Friday, apparently, is when the most campaigns are delivered to our inboxes.
Monday is a bit of a lost cause, Saturday too evidently. I’m guessing we are all too busy catching up on those days. Then again if you have an audience of tech fans, it’s quite possible they open more emails more often than the average person.
Is it lunchtime yet?
A large number of people work around a standard office day, so it should not be too surprising that the best time to send an email campaign is at 8am. That could secure you a very respectable open rate of around 20%. There is also a spike in both open and click-through rates at around 1pm and again at 4pm.