Traditionally marketers have been told to schedule their email campaigns to be sent out early in the day on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. However, a study by MailerMailer shows those days and times have some surprising changes. It seems Sunday through Thursday have some of the highest open and click through rates, Sunday being the highest.

Open Rates

Sunday overwhelmingly beat out the other days with a 12.3% open rate average. This translates into people planning for their week ahead from home. It is evident from this report that emails sent earlier in the week are opened more frequently.

Click Through Rates

Sunday also beat out the other days in click through rates with an average rate of 5.1%. Thursday is the second highest day for clicks, but definitely behind Sunday. This one is probably the most important to pay attention to since it is ultimately the click throughs that will bring business to your site.

Time of Day

The study also took a look at what time of day emails were sent in terms of opens and clicks. There was a definite dip in open and click through rates throughout the middle part of the day. This trend most likely occurs because recipients are more preoccupied during midday hours and cannot check their inbox. Surprisingly, midnight and 4:00am had the highest open rate and the highest click through rate. Doesn’t anyone sleep these days?

So what does all of this tell us? Try sending an email campaign on Sunday at midnight or Thursday at 3:00am and see if you get a better response from your prospects or customers. It is important that you test every day of the week and at various times for your list. What works for you could be very different than what this study found.