What is the best time to send emails for optimal engagement?

Key findings

• Weekday preference: Most data suggests that emails sent on weekdays, particularly Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, tend to see higher engagement rates compared to weekends.
• Morning peaks: A frequent observation is that emails perform well during morning hours, typically between 9 AM and 11 AM, when people start their workday and check inboxes.
• Afternoon potential: Some studies also indicate effective engagement in the afternoon, especially around 3 PM, as the workday winds down.
• Avoid top of the hour: A common piece of advice is to avoid sending emails precisely at the top of the hour (e.g., 9:00 AM, 1:00 PM) as many senders target these times, leading to inbox congestion.

Key considerations

• Audience specificity: The most critical factor is your unique audience's behavior. Their daily routines, industry, and geographic location heavily influence when they are most likely to open and engage with emails. Learning how to improve email inbox placement with sending priority and audience segmentation can significantly boost your results.
• Historical data analysis: Leveraging your own past campaign data is invaluable. Look at previous open and click rates to identify patterns specific to your subscribers. This internal data often outperforms generalized industry benchmarks.
• Testing and iteration: Continuous A/B testing of different send times is essential. What works today might not work tomorrow as audience habits evolve. You should also consider what are good email engagement thresholds for deliverability monitoring to set appropriate benchmarks.
• Content and context: The type of email (e.g., promotional, transactional, newsletter) can impact optimal send times. For instance, a quick flash sale might perform best at lunchtime, while an in-depth newsletter could be better for a morning commute. Twilio's blog highlights that promotional emails often see higher engagement on weekdays.

Key opinions

• No single answer: Many marketers agree that a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to email send times is a fallacy; optimal times are highly variable.
• Leverage historical data: Practical advice centers on using past engagement history to identify when your specific audience is most active.
• Lunch hour effectiveness: The lunch break (around 12 PM to 1 PM) is often cited as a potentially effective window, as professionals might check emails during this downtime.
• Personalized sending: Some modern Email Service Providers (ESPs) offer features to send emails at the individually 'best time' for each recipient, which marketers see as highly beneficial.

Key considerations

• Audience segmentation: Segmenting your audience by time zone or behavioral patterns allows for more targeted and effective send times, improving how does email segmentation improve deliverability, revenue, and engagement?
• Strategic testing: Marketers are encouraged to regularly test different send times and days to refine their strategy, moving beyond broad industry benchmarks. This is crucial for knowing when to increase email frequency for engaged subscribers to boost website traffic without hurting deliverability.
• Pre-peak sending: If historical data is unavailable, some suggest sending just before the busiest times observed in website analytics, aiming to catch users as they become active.
• Campaign specificity: Specific campaigns, like Black Friday promotions, might necessitate different timing strategies than regular newsletters. Salesforce highlights the effectiveness of the lunch hour for professionals.

Key opinions

• Timing nuance: Experts agree that the concept of a single 'best time' is largely a myth, advocating for a data-driven approach tailored to each sender's specific audience and email program.
• Avoid common bottlenecks: A key piece of advice is to avoid sending at the top of the hour (e.g., :00 past), as these times are oversaturated and can lead to slower delivery or increased filtering.
• Engagement first: Prioritizing content relevance and fostering engagement consistently is more impactful than chasing a specific time slot.
• Personalization is key: Leveraging advanced ESP features that predict individual recipient's optimal open times is considered the most effective strategy for maximizing engagement.

Key considerations

• Deliverability impact: While engagement is the goal, poor timing or sudden sending bursts can negatively affect email deliverability, potentially leading to blocklist issues or messages going to the spam folder. Understanding email sending speed best practices for deliverability is crucial.
• Sender reputation: Consistent positive engagement at any time is better for your sender reputation than sending at a 'popular' time with low engagement.
• Infrastructure capacity: Experts consider that mail server processing times and your email infrastructure capacity also influence when an email is actually delivered, not just when it's sent.
• Monitoring metrics: Closely monitor key engagement metrics and DMARC reports to identify anomalies or declines that might be linked to send timing. This helps in understanding what are good email engagement thresholds for deliverability monitoring.

Key findings

• Midweek performance: Many data-driven reports consistently identify Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays as the strongest days for email engagement across various industries.
• Morning priority: The period between 9 AM and 11 AM is frequently highlighted as a prime window for email opens and clicks, often associated with the start of the typical workday.
• Secondary peaks: Some documentation points to secondary engagement peaks around lunchtime (12-1 PM) and even in the early evening.
• Audience dependency: Most credible documentation underscores that generalized best times are only starting points; true optimization requires understanding the specific audience.

Key considerations

• Local time zones: When sending to a global or nationally diverse audience, adjusting for local time zones is critical to hit the reported optimal windows for each recipient.
• Email type influence: Different types of emails, such as newsletters versus promotional offers, may have different ideal send times. For instance, understanding how to improve low Gmail email open rates might involve looking at both timing and content.
• Continuous measurement: Documentation often stresses the importance of continuous monitoring of engagement metrics (opens, clicks, conversions) to validate and adapt send time strategies.
• User experience: While less direct, factors like how BIMI's impact on email engagement metrics could contribute to a better user experience that influences overall engagement regardless of the exact send time.