In modern communications, there is probably no question more prevalent than, "when is the best time to send emails?" The truth of the matter is that the answer is heavily debated, with the general consensus being that there is no universal best time to send emails, as concepts like targeted audience play a factor. It's agreed upon that in order to ensure that people open your emails, they should be mobile-friendly as 53 percent of emails are now opened on smartphones or tablets, with that number consistently increasing. Due to this fact, the idea of the traditional nine-to-five, you should send your emails between 8 AM and 10 AM Tuesday to Thursday, is becoming increasingly obsolete, as people now check their email at all hours of the day.
One surefire way to find out when your specific contacts are most likely to open their email is to run an A/B split test, where the same email is sent out to two different groups at two different times. It may take more than one iteration of testing to determine the ideal date and time for maximum open rates; ergo, it may be a good idea to, pardon the dramatics, run your testing "tournament-style", where times are tested against each other and the winner advances into the next bracket. It may also be worth your while to try sending emails on the weekend; while there are fewer emails sent out overall, what is sent out has a higher percentage of opens due to the scaled number. It is a good idea to consider if people would want to hear about your industry on the weekend.
53 percent of email opens still happen in the nine-to-five space, but that means that almost half of all email opens take place outside of work hours. Instead of targeting emails for a specific time a day, it may be a good idea to ensure that the content of your emails fit the free time that people have to browse them, whether they're on their lunch break or are texting in bed. By optimizing your emails to fit these small windows of time throughout the day, you're more likely to ensure that they are opened.
What works for your particular audience may completely miss the mark for someone else. The more you understand the habits of your contacts, the more you can optimize your campaign experience specifically for them, and even though a given time or day may work well for your current batch of contacts, if you add or subtract from that pool, doing additional testing may be worthwhile to ensure that people receive your emails when it is a good time for them.
At SimplyCast, we make it easier than ever to both test and schedule your emails to determine your unique optimal send time. We offer a fully-fledged reports feature so you can see at a glance what is working for a particular campaign, and what needs to be revised. Sign up for a free 14-day trial and start optimizing your email send times today!
