You've seen the articles. "Send emails on Tuesday at 10am for maximum engagement!" Cool. So has everyone else. Which means your perfectly timed Tuesday morning email is now competing with 47 other perfectly timed Tuesday morning emails in your subscriber's inbox.
I spent two years obsessing over send times before realizing I was optimizing the wrong thing. We A/B tested every hour of every day. We read every study. We built spreadsheets that would make an accountant weep.
The result? A 3% improvement in open rates. Three percent. I could have spent that time writing better subject lines and gotten 30%.
Why Most Send Time Advice Is Garbage
Here's the problem: every study about email timing aggregates data across millions of senders in completely different industries, with completely different audiences, sending completely different content.
When HubSpot says "10am on Tuesday" works best, they're averaging a SaaS newsletter, a retail promo blast, a B2B sales sequence, and your aunt's recipe blog into one number.
That number means nothing.
Your audience is not an average. They're specific people with specific habits. A nurse working night shifts doesn't check email at 10am Tuesday. A busy founder checks email at 6am before the chaos starts. A retail customer scrolls during lunch breaks.
| What Studies Say | What Actually Matters |
|---|---|
| Tuesday-Thursday best | When YOUR audience is online |
| 9am-12pm optimal | Their timezone, not yours |
| Avoid weekends | Unless you're B2C retail |
| Monday mornings bad | Depends entirely on industry |
The "best" time exists. But it's YOUR best time, not everyone's.
What the Data Actually Shows
Let's cut through the noise. Recent email performance data from Mailchimp, Klaviyo, and Campaign Monitor shows consistent patterns, but with major caveats.
The general trends:
Weekday mornings (9-11am recipient time) tend to see higher open rates across most industries. Makes sense. People check email when they start working.
Thursday edges out other days for engagement, but only by 2-3 percentage points over Tuesday and Wednesday. That's within the margin of error for most campaigns.
Weekend sends get lower opens but often higher click-through rates. Fewer people open, but those who do are actually interested instead of just clearing their inbox.
What most people miss:
The studies track opens and clicks. They don't track revenue. I've seen campaigns with "poor" open rates outperform "optimal" sends because the people who opened were actually buyers, not just inbox scrollers.
An 8pm Sunday send to your most engaged segment will crush a 10am Tuesday blast to your whole list. Every time.
How to Find Your Actual Best Send Time
Stop guessing. Test it.
Step 1: Check your existing data.
Pull your last 20 campaigns. Look at open rates by send time. You probably already have patterns hiding in your analytics. If 6pm consistently outperforms 10am for your list, that's your answer.
Step 2: Segment by behavior.
Your power users aren't your casual subscribers. Look at when your most engaged segment opens emails. That's your primary send window.
Step 3: Run a proper split test.
Send the same email to equal segments at different times. Not Tuesday 10am vs Tuesday 10:15am. Try Tuesday 10am vs Thursday 2pm vs Saturday 9am. Actually different times.
Do this across 4-6 campaigns before drawing conclusions. One test means nothing.
Step 4: Consider time zones.
If you're sending at 10am EST to a list that's 40% Pacific time, you're hitting those subscribers at 7am. Use send time optimization if your ESP offers it, or segment by geography.
For more on getting the basics right first, check out our guide on email marketing automation strategy.
The Timing That Actually Kills Your Campaigns
Bad timing isn't about sending at 3pm instead of 10am. Bad timing is:
Sending when you have nothing to say. A well-timed pointless email is still a pointless email. Nobody cares that it arrived at their optimal engagement window.
Ignoring recency. Someone who just signed up should get your welcome email immediately, not during your next scheduled send window. Speed beats timing for triggered emails. See our welcome email sequence guide.
Competing with yourself. If you sent a campaign yesterday, sending another one today means you're fighting your own previous email for attention. Space your sends out.
Forgetting about mobile. Over 60% of email opens happen on phones. When do people scroll their phones? Commutes. Lunch breaks. Evening couch time. Not necessarily business hours.
The Real Variables That Matter More Than Timing
I'm about to save you months of A/B testing.
Subject line matters 10x more than send time. A great subject line sent at a "bad" time outperforms a boring subject line sent at the "perfect" time. Focus there first. Check our email subject line best practices.
List quality matters 5x more than send time. Sending to engaged subscribers at any time beats blasting a dead list at the optimal window. If your open rates are under 15%, timing isn't your problem. Read about email list hygiene.
Content relevance matters 3x more than send time. A relevant email to the right segment will perform regardless of when it lands.
Sender reputation matters 2x more than send time. If your emails hit spam, the send time is irrelevant. Fix deliverability first.
Once all those are dialed in, sure, optimize your timing. But don't start there.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best day to send marketing emails?
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday consistently perform within 2-3% of each other for most industries. Thursday has a slight edge in B2B. The worst performers are typically Saturday (for B2B) and Monday morning (inbox overload). But your specific audience may buck these trends entirely.
Should I send emails in the morning or afternoon?
Morning sends (9-11am recipient time) generally see higher open rates. Afternoon sends (1-3pm) often see higher click-through rates since readers have more time to engage. Evening sends work well for B2C and consumer products. Test both and let your data decide.
Does email send time affect deliverability?
Indirectly, yes. If you send at times when your audience isn't engaged, you'll see lower opens, which signals to ISPs that your content isn't wanted. Over time, this can hurt inbox placement. Sending when your audience actually opens helps maintain strong sender reputation.
How often should I A/B test send times?
Test quarterly, not constantly. Run 4-6 campaigns at genuinely different times, measure results, pick a winner, then lock it in. Constant testing creates noise and prevents you from building audience expectations around your schedule.
What about send time optimization features in ESPs?
Use them if you have enough data. Tools like Mailchimp's Send Time Optimization or Klaviyo's Smart Send Time need significant historical data to work well. For lists under 10,000 or brands with less than 6 months of campaign history, they're often just guessing. Manual testing works better until you have volume.