You may be surprised to learn that a lot of research has been done to find out the best time to send an email. In short, the time and day you send your emails can determine whether they get opened instantly or ignored for later. By picking the right time and day to shoot someone an email, you can improve your chances of getting a quick reply. Zoho Mail is an excellent service for ensuring your emails get delivered.
Why does it matter when an email is sent?
The problem is that people get so many emails that it can be easy for them to just ignore an email without weighing its importance. If you want to take email seriously, you need to ensure that your message ends up in their inbox when they will see it. Sending your email at the right time is an important email etiquette rule you might want to consider.
Many industries need to know when their emails are opened and their chief compliance officer helps determine whether there is a need to track emails to ensure regulatory compliance.
What other factors play a role?
Besides time and day, there are some other factors to keep in mind when sending emails if you want your email to be prioritised Understanding these factors can boost the open rate of your emails even further. These factors play a part in influencing the best time and day to send emails, so it’s key to understand them. Remember, when sending emails, it’s smart to use secure email for secure communications.
Age
Typically, older individuals read their emails earlier. This means that sending emails between 8 am and 9 am can help ensure that older adults will read your emails. Recipients in their early to mid-twenties may not check their email at all in the morning, instead opting to check at lunch or in the afternoon.
Time zone
The time zone an email recipient resides in is also critical. Keeping track of your recipient’s time zone is actually more common than you may realize. Many teams work remotely and across different countries. Teams can work between New York and Paris, or LA and Chicago. In any case, time zones have a huge impact.
Device
Data from a study demonstrates that engagement between desktop and mobile devices is very different. In fact, 75% of all email opens in the United States happen on a smartphone. For those aged 18 to 34, 81% of email opens occur on a smartphone.
By comparison, laptops and desktop devices account for 29% of all email opens and tablets account for 21% of all email opens. As you can see, smartphones tend to be the device of choice for opening and reading emails. So, it helps to make sure your content is crisp and easy on the eyes when viewed from a mobile phone. Never-ending threads with cc and bcc can also be a turn-off, especially when viewing from a mobile. In such cases, novel features like email sharing and commenting can make emailing exciting, rather than cumbersome.
What’s the worst time to send an email?
All other factors remaining the same, is there a time you should absolutely avoid sending email? According to another analysis, it was found that specific time slots have the worst open rates and should be avoided.
Accordingly, it’s best to avoid the following time windows:
7 pm to 5 am
6 pm to 5 am
6 pm to 3 am
4 pm to 4 am
The one thing each of these different time slots has in common is that they’re all evening into the early morning hours. The takeaway here is that people aren’t checking their emails as regularly during the late evening and early morning hours.
The best times to send an email
Now that you know a bit about when not to send emails, let’s take a look at the best times to send them. A 2019 study revealed that email opens increase throughout the day, peak in the middle of the day, and then slowly decrease. According to the study, the best times were as follows:
Morning. Between 9 am and 10 am, open rates rise upward, with an average open rate of 21.35%.
Midday. Between 1 pm and 2 pm, open rates peak with an average open rate of 22.09%.
Late afternoon and early evening. Between 5 pm and 6 pm, open rates reach another peak, with an average open rate of 20.74%.
Wordstream found that between 8 am and 9 am was the best time to send an email, with good open rates of over 25%. Another analytics company found that 11 am was when email opens peaked, and then they decreased steadily after 1 pm.
Earlier, we discussed the importance of time zones. Time zones are key to keep in mind when deciding the best time of day to send an email.
For example, if you’re on the east coast of the United States and you send an email at 10 am to someone on the west coast, your recipient will be receiving it at 1 pm—well past the peak time for the highest open rates. Keep this in mind when sending emails. Zoho Mail can help track email send times and audit your emails for eDiscovery.
But it's impossible for you to keep track of the different time zones of the different people you work with or talk to. This is where the email scheduling feature of Zoho Mail comes into play. During your work hours, you can plan and schedule emails to be sent at the best possible time for your colleague who could be continents apart. This way, you can be sure that your emails don't reach their inboxes at odd times.
Best day to send an email
Now that we’ve looked at the best times to send an email, let’s turn to the best days to send an email. A look at the above data analysis demonstrates that Thursday is the best day to send an email. A closer look at the above data reveals that Saturday and Sunday are by far the worst days.
However, email opens pick up quickly on Monday and then continue rising until Thursday, when they peak. Friday sees a small drop, and then many fewer are opened Saturday.
Overall, the data suggest sending emails during the midweek for the highest success rate of opening.
Your turn
Do you plan your emails so that they reach your intended recipients at the best possible time? Or, do you just wing it? Let us know what has worked for you so that we can learn a thing or two. :)
Author Bio:
Gary Stevens is the CTO of Hosting Canada, a website that provides expert reviews on hosting services and helps readers build online businesses and blogs.
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