What's the best day to send email campaigns? Ahhh, we've heard this question time and time again so we have gathered the data from over twenty email markting experts and have analyzed over 1 billion emails to find the answer. This is what we found…

What's The Best Day To Send Email Campaigns?

Drum roll please…and the winner is Tuesday…or is it Thursday? Heck, it could even be Saturday or Sunday. The truth is, there are so many contradictory resources out there, yet each have valid and useful points. Many are backed by extensive data based on send results to numerous clients and verticals; others use business logic. I’m sure you’re heard it or read from some marketer somewhere…it goes kind of like this… 

“Monday is not the best day to send email because people are beginning their work week and are inundated with emails and planning. You can scratch Friday too because, by noon, people start shifting their focus to their weekend plans. And just forget about Saturday; it's the only day of the week without a workday on the back end so most folks are not paying too much attention to their email.” 

Though there may (or may not) be some truth to this logic, our ultimate goal here is to focus on real results derived from research and statistics from numerous noteworthy email experts. In determining the best day to send email, we broke the information down by evaluating different factors that come into play each day of the week. You can also get a more in-depth look at the differentiators in email marketer categories – B2B vs. B2C (click here) and even the type of devices emails are rendered on – i.e. desktop, table, mobile phone, etc. – click here.

The BEST Day(s) to Send Email

Mondays: Are they made for email marketing?

You won’t hear too many email marketing experts dishing out advice about how Mondays are a great day to send your email campaigns, that is, unless they read Experian’s email marketing benchmark study. This study concluded that emails sent on Mondays had the highest ROI (yet Friday had the better click through rate). 

Lumped into email marketing are email surveys. Mondays look promising for those of you who need feedback from your customers and prospects, since it was named the best day to send out email surveys. SurveyMonkey analyzed 100,000 surveys, sent Monday through Friday, to figure out the impact of the day they were sent verses the response rate. The conclusion – Mondays were the best day to send email surveys. On average, surveys sent out on Mondays received 10%** more responses than average.

Tuesdays & Thursdays: Rumored to be the best days to send email campaigns.

We are clumping these two days together because we heard rumors they were the best days to send out email campaigns. 

MailChimp wanted to do a little research around this data and possibly confirm what people were hearing (and reading). According to their research, Tuesdays and Thursdays are the highest volume send days for email. Though this doesn’t confirm these days to be the best send days, but it does tell us that a bunch of other marketers must have heard those same rumors and wanted to hop on the ‘best email send day’ train. But wait…doesn’t higher send volumes mean more competition in your recipients’ email boxes? This may be true, but nonetheless, Tuesday emailings had the highest open and click-through rates. At least that’s what Get Response concluded after analyzing over 300 million messages to determine the top days for open and click through rates. Thursday wasn’t too far behind! I guess there is some truth to those rumors after all.

Wednesday: A day with no big impact on winning the best day to send email.

In most cases, Wednesday dominated the middle ground – being neither the best day to send nor the worst to send. However, Harland Clarke Digital results drew a different different conclusion. To learn how today's on-the-go recipient engage with email marketing messages, Harland Clarke Digital analyzed over 1 billion campaigns (yeah – that is A LOT of email) sent over a course of 11 months. Out of this staggering number of campaigns, almost 27% were sent on Wednesday. Wednesday sends also had open rates of 20.6%, which included renders on both desktop and mobile devices.

Friday: Does this day make the cut for the best day to send email? 

If you are a retailer, Friday has proven to be a lucrative day to hit send your email campaigns. Retention Science derived the data from an analysis of 100 million online transactions, 20 million user profiles and 100 email campaigns. Through their findings, Friday produced a 26% conversion rate— only 2% behind Tuesday, which had the highest conversion rate of all the email send days.

FundsforWriters also has pretty good luck on Fridays and sends their email newsletters on this day by 10 pm. What they have found is that most of their readers have 9-5 jobs and enjoy relaxing with the newsletter on Saturday.

“I settled on this release date after feedback from many readers over the years, and I feel I’ve found a happy balance for all concerned.” 

Hope Clark 
Editor | FundsforWriters
(source)

Saturday and Sunday: Are weekend email sends a good option?

“Lookout weekend cause, here I come, because weekends were made for fun…and reading email.”

Okay, maybe we added a few words on to Debbie Deb’s hit song from the 80s’, but we think her lyrics would have been a bit different if she had the data we pulled from KISSmetrics.

According to email statistics gathered by KISSmetrics, open rates are the highest during the weekend, reaching a whopping 44% on Saturday. Click rates surged upward during these days, reaching as high as 10% on Saturday. On the flip side, the weekend also produces the highest bounce rates and abuse reports (both at 0.11%). Some people just don’t like to be bothered on their days off.

Experian’s Quarterly Email Bench Mark Study also concluded Saturday and Sunday were good days to send out email campaigns. Weekend sends yielded the highest open, click, transaction, and revenue rates per email. According to their study, lower volumes of email are also being deployed on the weekend compared to other days of the week.

Email Send Day…Still To Be Determined

“Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.”

Hesiod 
Greek poets, "the father of Greek didactic poetry" | 700bc

It’s all about the timing…right? Overwhelming, a high number of experts believe that there is no ‘right day’ to send an email campaign because there are just too many factors that play into the correct timing of sending out an email campaign. Think about it…your company, your industry, and your audience all have unique demands and needs. Pinpointing those needs on the right day can be tricky, so we recommend you test to see what works with the best with your audience. 

Going against the grain…
As soon as she has an email ready, author and email marketer Linda Formicelli sends a campaign out to her subscriber list of over 2,000 writers — regardless of the day. Calling BS to traditional email sending business logic, Linda tried a little experiment. On Sunday at 11:23 am, she sent out an email announcing that she was holding a contest to promote her newest e-book. Within 30 minutes, she had 97 opens, 16 clicks, and 8 sales. Within an hour, the numbers had increased to 212 opens, 39 clicks, and 11 sales. By 3:23, she had 484 opens, 93 clicks, and a total of 27 sales. By the time I went to bed early that evening, she had sold 53 e-books. The next day, Monday, she sold 30 more. (source)

Though this may not work for all audiences, it worked for Linda’s. The lesson here – test and see what works for you and what your audience responds to.

We know there’s a lot of information to take in on send days alone, but also believe that knowledge brings success. By proving you with real data provided by notable marketers, you have the basis or forming an educated strategy around your send days.

Are You Curious About The BEST Time(s) To Send Email?

Click here to find out what time your customers are most likely going to open your email campaigns.

Get started with Pinpointe today and determine the best send time (and day) for email your campaigns. And if you need any help along the way…we've got you covered.