When Are the Best Times to Send an Email Newsletter?

Let’s tackle the ever-elusive question that every email marketer has asked at some point: when is the best time to send an email newsletter?

It’s vital to answer this question effectively for your business. After all, let’s say that you’re sending emails to 50,000 people and have a 25% open rate—or 12,500 opens.

Then, assume that you can optimize your sends to get 30% opens—or 15,000 opens! Those extra 2,500 opens for every email you send can make a massive difference for your bottom line. 

Depending on your business model, that means more ad revenue, more clicks to your sales page, or more appointments you can generate.

Achieving an increase of 5 percentage points is certainly within the realm of possibility for optimizing open times, making this a low-hanging fruit for increasing revenue.

When Are the Best Times to Send Email Newsletters?

Here’s what some of the industry’s titans have found in their research:

Tuesday mid-morning is the clear winner, although sending at those times on Wednesday and Thursday isn’t bad either. 

We see a few outliers, such as MailerLite pointing out that Monday is one of the better days to send, while the other studies showed Monday as one of the worst days.

Omnisend’s claim that Fridays at 8 PM is one of the best times to send seems hard to believe and may be more indicative of their specific audience.

Here are a few other findings from those brands’ studies:

• Saturday, Sunday, and Monday are typically the worst days, with Sunday at the bottom.
• While 10 AM seems ideal for most, bumps in engagement are typically seen around 6 PM and then 1 AM (strangely enough).
• First thing in the morning appears to be a low-engagement time, despite many brands sending emails then.

How to Determine the Best Time to Send Your Emails

The studies shared above give us a good baseline, but they’re not indicative of your brand. They cover billions of email sends but may not be what’s right for you.

Let’s cover several more factors that can help you determine what email send times make the most sense.

B2B vs B2C Email Send Times

We’ll start with the most obvious factor for send times: whether your audience is comprised of businesses or consumers. According to Sender:

• Send B2B emails Tuesday - Thursday between 5 AM and 7 AM
• Send B2C emails Mondays or Fridays at 9:30 PM
  
  

Those are wildly different times! Neither mentions the sweet spot from above (around 10 AM). This may be because that data includes all types of emails, which averages out the best time between B2B and B2C emails and spits out 10 AM.

We can also use some logic here. Many people in an office are likely checking their email as one of their first tasks. This means that a B2B email that’s already in the inbox is more likely to get checked than one sent a bit later once the person is already in the swing of their workday.

The B2C evening send times also check out, as people are relaxing and  browsing their phones at that time of day. Another possible time to test is early on the weekend (8 AM or so) or at lunch hours during the week.

Nurture vs Blast vs Behavioral Emails

If you’re in traditional email marketing, you’re mostly dealing with three types of email, each of which may have additional considerations about sending time.

• Nurture sequences - These pre-programmed sequences are most often used to take new leads through a process of learning about your company. You can choose to send most emails out at the most optimal time but then occasionally send them out at other times or days of the week to capitalize on people with different email-checking habits.
• Blast Emails - Most companies will send these out at the optimal time each day to maximize results. There are some exceptions, such as when marketing an event or promoting a flash sale that’s about to end.
• Behavior-Based Emails - These would include abandoned cart emails, appointment reminders, purchase confirmations, and more. In some cases, such as receipts, they should be sent right away regardless of time. However, abandoned cart emails often perform better if you wait until an optimal sending window.
  
  

Segmented Email Send Times

Companies that segment their list experience 30% more opens and 50% more clicks than those that don’t—so if you’re already doing this, you’re ahead of the game.

But how do segmented lists and send times work together to drive results?

First, you can segment your list by how responsive your subscribers are. The most responsive segment might receive several emails a week, while a less responsive segment might receive one or two.

On days when you send to both segments, you can send to your most responsive segment 30 minutes earlier than the other. You’re more likely to see opens and clicks from the first segment, which makes your second batch of emails more likely to hit inboxes rather than spam filters.

Advanced Segmentation

We mentioned earlier the possibility of sending at different times to accommodate different subscribers’ email-checking habits.

You can accomplish this by sending emails at different times and then segmenting your subscribers based on when they open/click.

For example, you send emails at 5 AM, 12 PM, and 6 PM. Everyone who opens the email at 5 AM gets segmented into a “5 AM” group, and so on with the different times! After a while, you’ll have great data for a large chunk of your subscribers.

Then, you can divide your email into different batches and send them at the optimal time for each subscriber (many email platforms can do this).

Best Times for Newsletter Email Sends

Now, let’s focus on round-up-style newsletters. Everything mentioned so far can still apply to a newsletter-style email (such as Marketing Brew or Newsette), but there are often extra considerations.

Since newsletters are often more niche, it’s easier to consider when your audience might open your email.

For example, studies show Sunday is a bad time, but if you send out a college football newsletter, that might be the best time!

Or, if you review TV shows, evening sends are likely a win because people are in a TV-watching mindset.

B2B newsletters likely don’t change. If you write a newsletter about business leadership, sending it during the week in the morning is a great place to start.

Examples of Newsletter Send Times

Many curated newsletters are sent first thing in the morning to ensure you’re caught up on the latest. For example, Newsette, 1440, The Hustle, and many others are already in your inbox when you wake up. They are massive companies with the resources to put together incredible newsletters overnight.

Smaller, but still successful, newsletters often don’t go for the first-thing-in-the-morning send.

For example, NextDraft is run by Dave Pell, who spends each morning curating the best news stories. He doesn’t send his out until early afternoon, but he can also include news stories that hit that morning, in addition to the night before.

Marc Stein runs a popular NBA newsletter called The Stein Line. His appears to go out at whatever time of day he finishes it.

Other Factors Affecting Newsletter Email Send Times

Let’s cover a few smaller thoughts about when to send emails:

• Consider Time Zones - Many email platforms allow you to send emails in each subscriber’s time zone. Use that feature to ensure you’re hitting the window you desire.
• Be Consistent - Especially for newsletter-style emails, your subscribers will look for your newsletter on pre-determined days and times.
• But Also Fit Your Schedule - Consistency is great, if not always realistic for some operations. If you’ve created a brand people love, they’ll be okay if you miss some days or switch up the times occasionally.
• Test, Test, Test - We’ve named a lot of factors. The best thing you can do is take the research, consider your audience, mix in your gut feeling, and start sending. Then, switch up the times a bit. Split test. See what wins. Soon, you should have a good idea of when your audience engages most with your brand.

Just Press “Send”

The most important aspect of sending your newsletter…is just sending it! It’s easy to get caught up in the details, such as send times, design, copy, and more. While you can (and should) eventually optimize those things, it’s also necessary to get in the reps by just doing it.

One of the easiest ways to send your newsletter is to pick an email platform built specifically for newsletter-style content. Letterhead was designed to help you start and scale your newsletter platform. Schedule a quick consult with us, and we’ll show you how easy it is to send your first (or next) newsletter.