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New Data: Emails Sent on Saturdays Have Higher CTRs and Lower Unsub Rates

 

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In preparation for my upcoming Science of Email Marketing webinar, I've been digging into a giant dataset of over 9.5 billion email sends from our friends at Mailchimp, and I've found a number of surprising things.

The first thing I noticed was that emails sent on Saturdays and Sundays tend to have much higher clickthrough rates than those sent during the business week.

ctr day

I also found that unsubscription rates tend to peak on Tuesday and are the lowest on Thursdays. From an unsubscription perspective, Saturdays are one of the best days.

unsub day

The takeaway here is that you should start to think about experimenting with sending your email campaigns on Saturdays. And don't forget to register for the Science of Email Marketing Webinar.

Live Webinar: The Science of Email Marketing

Live Webinar: The Science of Email Marketing

Posted by Dan Zarrella on Tue, Feb 01, 2011 @ 11:00 AM

COMMENTS

Thanks for ruining it for all of us sending emails on Saturday! :) 
 
Now that you've told the world, the weekend rates will drop to the weekly averages...

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:10 AM by Ilya


Without segmenting this for B2B and B2C marketing, it's hard to tell if experimenting with sends on the weekends is actually a good idea. Any data on that?

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:11 AM by Tracy Gold


It seems to me that this would be true more for B2C recipients than B2B. What do the rest of you think?

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:20 AM by Jason Klass


I think there is a false belief in an imaginary gap between b2b and b2c behaviors. "businesses" are made of people, consumers are people. There is very little reason they would differ drastically in most behaviors. Perhaps sales cycles are longer, but that wouldn't effect email CTRs.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:23 AM by Dan Zarrella


This makes total sense to me. When I work on Saturdays, I often take more time to look at emails. On Tuesdays, I am feeling totally overwhelmed by all of my Monday emails and I start wondering why I have all of the extraneous stuff in my inbox!

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:26 AM by Vicki Frost


Maybe--but how many people work on Saturdays? If you're marketing to small, start-up companies who have the pedal to the medal, then sure, but many businesses stick to 9 to 5 and have employees who don't even check their work email when they are at the office. Personally, I know that I'm way more likely to browse an ecommerce store for shoes than to read a business blog post on a Saturday.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:42 AM by Tracy Gold


I agree with Tracy. If it's a Saturday and I get an email that's related to something non-work related, I'm more likely to open it on the weekend. I rarely open work-related email promos on the weekend. At the office, I am less likely to look at promos on Monday but will later in the week when things slow down. Maybe that's just me.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:47 AM by Jason Klass


Very interesting, there's more time on Saturdays (and Sundays) to read emails more thoroughly, good point!

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 11:48 AM by Sara


Interesting report Dan. Though because we're all good marketers here we know not to just take the data and run with it. 
 
So many different variables are in play here that I think it's unjust to declare Saturday the best day to expect high CTRs. 
 
We're all savvy emailers here, right? We know to test and find out which days work best for us personally. 
 
Still, interesting to note your find. Makes you wonder what other tidbits of fun information you can come up with.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 12:24 PM by Tanner


What is the open rate for Saturdays? That counts too.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 1:05 PM by Sue


How much of this is B2B or B2C

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 1:18 PM by Joe Kern


and here i always thought thursday was the magic day as people mentally move past the "hump" and start loosening up a smidge in anticipation of the weekend... Now I gotta experiment with sme saturday releases and see what happens.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 1:47 PM by Andy the geek


I agree, people probably look through their personal email more on the weekends than during the week. I would probably see it a little different with work and office emails.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 2:48 PM by Alec Difrawi


I wonder how the rates would look if you could segregate mobile reads vs desktop reads. Seems to me that the click through is more likely when people are at the desk than on the run, but I don't have data to back up the assumption.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 3:43 PM by Lee Kirkby


Agree with Joe - curious to see B2C vs B2B results....

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 3:51 PM by Jane


As commenter Sue asked, I'd be most interested in open rates. CTR's being high doesn't surprise me, since it's likely you have more free time once you decide to take on email to actually read them and take action (CTR). But in my experience, open rates were nearly 50% lower on weekend emails vs weekday emails, this in a B2C setting.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 4:57 PM by Christian


I think we're ignoring a huge factor here. Seeing as click through rates are a function of opens, it is completely logical to question whether the CTR is worth the dip in open rate. 
 
If I am looking at a click through rate of 50% on Saturday, coming from a 5% open rate, but a 25% CTR coming from a 15% open rate on a Tuesday, I am going to have to argue against the "data" on this one. 
 
Unless, of course, you are dealing with an ESP with "prime time" capability, which would allow you to target individuals at their optimum activity times.

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 5:33 PM by Clay


I wonder why Saturday; maybe it's the type of emails sent. During the week you obviously get lots of work related emails but on the weekend you might get emails from leisure related stuff, concert venues, restaurants and such. hmm, just a guess though

posted on Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 9:53 PM by Marlene Hauer


Saturdays are the day I have the most time and can (hopefully) clear out my inbox. Items get opened & scanned all week for action or dates. On Sat they get read & acted upon if necessary.

posted on Wednesday, February 02, 2011 at 7:58 AM by Grace White


Are these b-to-b emails or b-to-c?

posted on Thursday, February 03, 2011 at 6:39 AM by Sabine


I did a post last week providing 10 charts on Time of Day/Week for Social Media Marketing including eMail. I note these are only guides and only your experiment with your own product will tell you. I've certainly had very strong results with weekend sends for leisure-related products like sports clubs. Here's a link to my post if it helps. Good work Hubsters! 
 
http://bit.ly/timeoday+

posted on Thursday, February 03, 2011 at 9:01 AM by Bob Nunn


Thanks for the tip! I'll have to try posting on Saturdays more often. What time of day is best for posting, though?

posted on Friday, February 04, 2011 at 1:48 PM by Harmony Wheeler


Comments have been closed for this article.