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...
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?
It seems to me that this would be true more for B2C recipients than B2B. What do the rest of you think?
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.
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!
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.
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.
Very interesting, there's more time on Saturdays (and Sundays) to read emails more thoroughly, good point!
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.
What is the open rate for Saturdays? That counts too.
How much of this is B2B or B2C
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.
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.
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.
Agree with Joe - curious to see B2C vs B2B results....
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.
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.
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
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.
Are these b-to-b emails or b-to-c?
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+
Thanks for the tip! I'll have to try posting on Saturdays more often. What time of day is best for posting, though?