What time of day do most people open emails?

What Time of Day do Most People Open Emails?

Apr 27, 2023

AudiencePoint Team

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When sending marketing emails, you want to reach subscribers when they’re most likely to engage. Knowing that, you may wonder, what time of day do most people open emails?

We’ll cover the answer to that question in this article. You’ll also get other tips on optimizing email send times. Keep reading to learn how to get the most out of your email marketing strategy.

What Is The Best Day To Send An Email?

Before getting into the best time to send send marketing content, you should first look at the most optimal days of the week to send emails. That way, you can adjust your strategy for email send times accordingly. 

Several studies have analyzed email engagement on different days of the week. What they found was that the middle of the week usually gets the highest engagement rates. That would be Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. 

Sending on any of these days will reach the average person in the middle of their work week. It’s a good strategy since most people actively check their inboxes at work. 

It’s also a time of the week when many people have more energy, meaning better engagement and activity levels on new content. 

Why Is Time Of Day Important When Sending An Email?

The time of day is important when sending emails for several reasons. The main reasons are:

  • You want to reach subscribers when they’re most likely to engage. If you email at times of the day when people have lower energy or are likely to get distracted by other things, it results in lower success rates from marketing emails. You want to catch subscribers when they’re looking for new content and are likely to convert. 
  • There’s a lot of clutter in email inboxes. Email marketing has a very high return on investment, so many companies want to take advantage of it. Emailing right before someone checks their inbox puts your email at the top of the list as one of the most recent. When someone sees your content first, they’ll be more likely to open it. 
  • People get used to daily habits, like checking emails at a certain time. Sending emails at the same time of day and day of the week consistently can be a good strategy. Subscribers who enjoy your content may even start to check their inbox when they’re used to getting emails from you, especially if you email at a time that works well for them. 

Overall, emailing at the right time based on subscriber needs and daily habits is effective. You’ll likely see a significant impact on key engagement metrics like open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate by optimizing send times

What Time Of Day Do Most People Open Emails?

Now that you know send time is important, you’re probably wondering what time of day most people open emails. Research on the topic has shown that most people open emails during the middle of the day from 9am-3pm. 

Many people check their inboxes frequently during this time. They’re likely getting work emails, personal emails, and other notifications sent to their inboxes. If a well-timed email from your company shows up, there’s a better chance it’ll be successful. 

The Effects of Apple MPP on Send Time Optimization for Open Rate

Timing marketing emails for when subscribers are most likely to open them is a great strategy. However, you need to make sure you have accurate metrics for when subscribers usually open content. 

Apple’s mail privacy protection (MPP) had affected that. When emails are sent to the mail app on Apple devices, they are first opened on Apple proxy servers. As a result, it skews data for open rate and what time subscribers actually opened your content. 

AudiencePoint’s email insight software has a solution for that. Our software can identify Apple MPP opens and isolate them from reporting. It provides you with accurate metrics that are up to date with today’s email marketing needs. That way, you can accurately see when subscribers open your content and implement the best strategies for email send times. 

Is It Ok To Send An Email On The Weekend?

When thinking about optimal send times, you may wonder if emailing on the weekend is a good idea. The weekend may not be the best option for sending professional work emails to your boss or co-workers because it could be seen as unprofessional. 

However, sending marketing content to consumers is different. It won’t be seen as unprofessional, and your email subscribers won’t think much of it if they get a marketing email on the weekend. 

That said, marketing email content does tend to get less engagement on the weekends. The decrease in engagement on the weekend is because many people are busy doing other things. Many people simply don’t spend as much time looking at their inboxes, which means your marketing content could be missed or ignored if you send it on the weekend. 

Ultimately, it depends on when your subscribers are most likely to engage. Some groups of consumers will be highly engaged on weekends. For others, the middle of the work week may work much better. Using insight software like AudiencePoint can help you plan your strategy more effectively.

How AudiencePoint Can Help with Your Email Marketing Strategy

AudiencePoint offers email insight software that tracks subscriber engagement and provides actionable recommendations on improving your email strategy. 

AudiencePoint can help with send time optimization using data from our large pool of second-party data to provide insights on the most optimal days and times to send new marketing content. This keeps you from having to waste time performing test campaigns to gather data on the habits of your subscribers and protects you from creating a bias in your testing. 

Along with that, AudiencePoint also provides other tools that help you:

  • Get email performance metrics and insights in real time after you send new content. 
  • Identify and re-engage inactive subscribers. 
  • Accurately segment your email list. 
  • Find new strategies to make your content more engaging. 

Using AudiencePoint’s tools simplifies the whole process of improving your email marketing strategy. Contact us today if you’re interested in getting started with AudiencePoint. We’re here to answer any other questions you may have.