What time of day is best to send an email marketing message?

What Time Of Day Is Best To Send An Email Marketing Message?

May 12, 2023

AudiencePoint Team

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The timing of email marketing messages is important. Emailing when your subscribers are most likely to engage will boost your conversion rates and help you stand out from competitors. It simply gives you the best possible chance of success when subscribers check their inboxes and your well-timed email is sitting at the top of the list as one of the most recent. 

With that in mind, you’re probably looking for information on what the best times of day are to send an email marketing message. This article will cover what you should know in detail. By the end, you’ll know what tools and strategies you need to effectively plan the send times of marketing messages. Keep reading to get all the details. 

What Time Of Day Is Best To Send A Marketing Email?

First, let’s tackle the general best time of day to send marketing emails. Several studies on this topic have shown that the average consumer is most engaged in the middle of the day. A good time range for email engagement is 9 am-3 pm. 

That said, these numbers can vary. Every consumer base is different, so you want to target send times based on when your audience engages. Several factors can contribute to that, such as work schedules, lifestyles, and age, to name a few. 

Even in certain niches, the appropriate send times for marketing messages can be vastly different within your list of subscribers. For example, if you’re targeting nurses or other medical professionals, they could be working at any number of times during the day. Some may work day shifts while others work at night. 

How To Send Email Marketing Messages At The Right Time

To efficiently send emails at the right time, you need data on your subscribers and easy-to-implement recommendations. 

AudiencePoint’s email insight software can help with this. We offer a tool called Send Time Optimization. This tool collects data from email subscribers and provides actionable insights on the best times to send marketing emails. You can even get insights for segmented groups of your email list to send emails at the appropriate time for everyone

Is It Better To Send An Email In The Morning Or Afternoon?

To get further insight into how email send times can affect engagement, you may wonder if it’s better to email in the morning or the afternoon. After all, the general best time to send emails covers both of these time ranges. 

Emailing in the morning can perform better if you’re looking for a response or conversion within the same day. It gives subscribers a chance to see your message and determine how they want to respond to it within that optimal time range for engagement. 

Is It Ok To Send An Email In The Afternoon?

While the morning could perform a bit better, that doesn’t mean the afternoon is a bad time to send marketing email messages. As long as you email before 3 pm, the data shows you should still have good average engagement potential. 

Engagement will often drop significantly after 3 pm and especially after 5 pm since many people have lower energy toward the end of the day. 

Is Sending Emails On Friday Afternoon A Good Idea?

One instance where emailing in the afternoon might not be the best idea is Friday. On Fridays, many people are getting ready for the weekend. That can lead to some consumers not checking their inboxes as much as it gets into the afternoon. If that happens, it could cause them to miss the content you send. Emailing earlier on Friday is your better bet in that case. 

Is It Rude To Send Emails Early In The Morning?

You may also be wondering about emailing early in the morning before 9 am. It isn’t rude to send an email marketing message in the morning. Most general consumers won’t think much about what time you email them. It’s different than a work-related email, where a co-worker might find it inappropriate if you email them outside of regular work hours. 

The real question is if emailing early in the morning will work best for your audience. In some cases, it will. 

For example, many landscapers get up very early in the morning to beat the heat, especially in the summer when it is very warm outside. So emailing someone in that industry early in the morning could be a great idea. It would give you a better chance they see it and engage as they’re getting started in their day. 

If you want to find what times work best for your subscribers to receive and engage with an email marketing message, AudiencePoint can help. 

How Audiencepoint Can Help With Your Email Marketing

AudiencePoint offers email insight software that tracks data from subscribers and provides actionable insights to improve your email strategy. 

With AudiencePoint, you can accurately identify and implement strategies into your existing email campaigns with organized recommendations that are easy to follow. 

Our tools, Send Time Optimization, Real Time Optimization, and ListFit, will help you:

  • Email at the best times and days of the week to maximize individual subscriber engagement.. 
  • Get details about subscribers who have become inactive and how to re-engage them. 
  • Identify and isolate Apple MPP opens from reporting to get more accurate open rate metrics. 
  • Find the best strategies to optimize key engagement metrics. 

All these insights and more through AudiencePoint will take your email marketing strategies to the next level. To find out more about how AudiencePoint can help, contact us today.