Relativity and the Best Time to Send Email

It’s a question that gets asked more often than “do you want fries with that?”

Unfortunately, the answer to “what is the best time to send email?” is not a simple one.

In fact, the answer is a lot more complicated than it sounds, because it’s different for every person on every list: 

What Time Do You Check Your Email?

OK, OK. Maybe it’s not asked of you that often after all. But if everyone reading this could answer that question aloud, you’d hear a discordant harmony of different times.

“In the morning, post-coffee, pre-commute.”

“As soon as I get in to work. You didn’t expect me just to dive into working, did you?”

“After I put the kids to bed.”

“Are you kidding, what time do I check my email? As in a singular event? Psh, I’ve checked it twice since I started giving you this answer.”

You see, there is no one best time to send email – we can tell that by simply looking at our own behavior. Yet it seems that everyone with a list to hit and a message to send wants to ask the oversimplified question and get an oversimplified answer.

The Best Time to Send Email Is …

Over the years we’ve seen a lot of data and heard a lot of perspectives on sending email.

“Tuesdays, 2 p.m.: because people are over playing “catch-up” from Monday, are into their day Tuesday, and they just came back from lunch. This is the time to send.”

“Sunday, 11 p.m.: because people are checking their email in preparation for the week ahead.”

“Friday, 3 p.m.: because people are mentally checked out from the workweek and are killing time before work turns into the weekend. They might actually pay attention if you send it to them now.”

There’s no shortage of answers and the rationales can be very convincing. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for your list. The obvious truth is that there is no one correct best time to send email.

People are different. They check their emails at different times. And 72% of people check their email every day.

So how can you tell when it is the best time to send email to your list?

When it’s the best time for the person receiving it to open it. This is going to be different for third-shift nurses than it is for elementary school teachers. Different for marketing managers than it is for wedding planners.

Here are some ways you can find out what the best time to send email is to your list:

Think Global, Send Local
Your recipients likely have different time zones so take this into consideration. Think about segmenting your list geographically (based on time zone) and sending in batches based on that. East coasters may love getting your 9 a.m. email as they get settled in to work, but your West coasters are still fast asleep.

Business Versus Pleasure
When your subscriber signed up to receive your email updates, they gave you your first clue as to when they’d like to receive your email by signing up with either a work account or their personal account.

True, many people (this author included, sorry boss!) check their personal email account during the work day, but many organizations still prohibit this. Take into consideration if you are sending to a personal account (e.g. @hotmail.com, @gmail.com, @yahoo.com) or a business account (e.g. @company.net, @someonesbusinessname.com etc.) and consider segmenting your list send based on this.

Test Everything
We’re big advocates of testing your email marketing, and testing time of day and day of week is a huge part of that. One incredible resource for testing time of day send is this post written by Blue Sky Factory. They spell out a step-by-step process to run an experiment on your own list to gauge the most responsive time and day to send.

Keep tabs on the performance of your email marketing and note the peaks and valleys in your open rates. Your audience is unique and no single blog post (including this one) or study (like this great resource)will give you a definitive answer on the best time to send your email.

The best time to send email is when the recipient wants to receive it. Asking, testing, and working around their schedules are some of the basic moves to make.

What tips do you have for finding out the best time to send email to your list?

[Image: calliope]