Mailchimp: when is the best time to send your campaign?

 

This is a question that I am frequently asked. However, as straightforward as the question may seem, there isn’t a simple answer.

When should you send your email campaign?

Studies show that business-to-business emails are best sent on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday around 10 am and that business-to-consumers are best sent on Saturday around 10 am.

Mondays and Fridays are the least favourite days to send email campaigns - Mondays are usually for planning the week ahead and Fridays for finalising any outstanding tasks before the weekend.

However, the above is not always true…

The delivery day/time of your campaign really depends on your content and your audience: what they do for a living, how old they are, if they are desktop or mobile users, in which time zones they are, etc…

I have chosen examples to illustrate this. Let’s imagine that:

You own a restaurant, and you have a special offer on your weekend menu. A good day to send your email campaign could be Friday, when people generally make plans for the weekend.

You host a networking group on a weekday, and you want to send an email to your subscribers to invite them to your event. A good day/time to send your campaign could be Monday morning when people tend to get organised for the week ahead.

Understanding your demographics is especially important to ensure the success of your email campaign. However, it could take time and a lot of testing to get it right.

But there may be an easier solution if you use Mailchimp.

Mailchimp’s “Send Time Optimization” feature

Mailchimp has created a tool to analyse your audience’s click activity history and determine when it generally opens your campaigns. This tool is called “Send Time Optimization” - available to paid accounts only.

The “Send Time Optimization” tool is great to determine what is the best time to send your campaigns.

Here is how to use it: After creating your campaign in Mailchimp, go to “Schedule” (instead of “Send”) –> select the “Delivery Day -> select “Send Time Optimization” -> click “Schedule Campaign”.

To summarise

Your campaign delivery day/time is dependent on your audience and your content. That is why it is important to understand your demographics.

However, your audience has subscribed to your newsletter for a reason. If you share content they can relate/are interested to, metrics should speak for themselves, even if the delivery time of your campaign is not always “optimal”.