Test: mornings may be best for email marketing

You've culled non-responsive email addresses, you've sent "Welcome" messages and adjusted campaign wording. Still, campaign results may not be what you expected. Have you ever wondered if sending email marketing messages at specific times would make a difference in campaign ROI?

by Kristina Knight

Recently marketers who had done all the right things for their email campaigns - updated the signup page, segmented the email list, tested for best days and followed emailing best practices - tested the timing of email messages and found some interesting results.

Since the organization received most online orders during business hours (9 AM - 5 PM), the marketers tested various times of the business day to see what kind of response was received. They sent messages at 9 AM (because users were just getting to work), at 12 PM (because of lunch-hour orders) and at 4 PM (because users were readying to leave for the day). They found that emails sent in the morning performed nearly 10% better than emails sent in the afternoons.

Focusing on click-throughs rather than email open rates, they found that messages sent to users at 9 AM performed 15% better than messages sent at 4 PM. The 9 AM messages performed nearly 10% better than messages sent at 12 PM and messages sent at 12 PM performed 6% better than messages sent at 4 PM.

Your company's results may perform differently but testing various dayparts could help determine a better time or day to send your next email marketing message.