|
The Alchemy Worx Consumer Mailbox (AWCM) Index, a monthly survey of what email marketers are up to, is made up of subscriptions to over 100 free email newsletters or offer programmes. This month the AWCM index takes a look at what time of day email marketers are sending their emails.
Perhaps unsurprisingly 67% of marketing messages were received between 9am and 6pm (Figure 1). Apart from the fact that there seemed to be a series of peaks every other hour throughout the day there does not appear to be any discernable preference for any particular time.
So we decided to separate weekend send times from weekdays (Figures 1a and 1b) and what we found was much more interesting. The charts indicate that send times are more likely to be driven by the working hours and for the convenience of email marketers and not their clients!
The graph of weekday send times looks very different from the graph of weekend send times and has 3 distinct peaks at 11am, 1pm and between 5pm and 6pm.
What does this mean?
- Not many email marketers are deliberately targeting the start of the working day; setting up, testing and deploying an email usually takes around 2 hours; so an email that arrives in your inbox before 10am will probably have been deployed the previous day.
- The evidence that send times are for email marketers convenience is further borne out by the fact that the first peak of the working day is at 11am, approximately 2 hours after many people start work. This implies that email marketers are getting their emails out 'as soon as possible' rather than aiming for a particular time slot.
- The 1pm or lunchtime peak looks like the only time that is being deliberately targeted
- The very large peak in activity at the end of the day suggests that many emails are targeted by day and not hour, so the only real deadline is the need to get home.
Most emails sent at the weekend are likely to have been set up and deployed during the previous week. This means:
- The majority of send times for emails are likely to have been planned and 9am is by far and away the preferred send time.
- Weekend lunch times are not considered as important as weekdays
The Alchemy Worx Consumer Mailbox Index is a monthly survey of what email marketers are up to. The index is made up of subscriptions to over 100 free email newsletters or offer programs. The companies represented in the survey cover a broad range of consumer goods and services, including travel, retail, supermarket, comparison sites, DIY/furniture, fashion, health, jewellery, mobile phones, movies, music, photography and electrical goods.
Dela Quist
Chief Executive Officer
Alchemy Worx
|
|
