The Ultimate Guide to Email Sending Schedules: Maximizing Open Rates

As a Mailchimp user, you’ve crafted the perfect subject line, designed beautiful templates, and segmented your audience with precision. But there’s one crucial element that can make or break your campaign’s success: timing. The question “What’s the best time to send my emails?” is one of the most frequently asked by email marketers, and for good reason.

The truth is, there’s no universal “magic hour” that works for every business, but there are proven strategies and data-driven insights that can help you find your optimal sending schedule.

The General Industry Benchmarks

While your specific audience may differ, industry research provides helpful starting points:

Best Days to Send:

• Tuesday through Thursday consistently show the highest open rates across industries
• Tuesday often takes the top spot, with many businesses seeing open rates 2-3% higher than other days
• Thursday is particularly effective for B2B communications

Best Times to Send:

• 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: The sweet spot when people check email after settling into their workday
• 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM: The afternoon email check during lunch breaks or post-lunch productivity dips
• 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM: Evening wind-down time when people catch up on personal emails

Days and Times to Avoid:

• Monday mornings (inbox overload from the weekend)
• Friday afternoons (weekend mindset kicks in)
• Weekends (lower engagement for most B2B communications)

Why These “Rules” Don’t Always Apply

Your audience is unique, and their email habits may not align with industry averages. Consider these factors that influence optimal timing:

Industry Variations:

• Restaurant and hospitality: Friday afternoons and evenings perform well
• Retail and e-commerce: Weekend sends often see higher engagement
• Healthcare: Early morning sends (7-9 AM) can be effective
• Education: Tuesday and Wednesday mid-morning work best

Geographic Considerations: If your audience spans multiple time zones, you’ll need to segment your sends or choose a time that works for your primary market.

Audience Demographics:

• B2B audiences typically check email during business hours
• B2C audiences often engage more during evenings and weekends
• Age groups have different email habits (younger audiences may check email less frequently during traditional business hours)

How to Find Your Perfect Sending Time

Step 1: Analyze Your Historical Data

Mailchimp’s reporting features are your best friend here. Look at your past campaigns and identify patterns:

1. Go to your Reports section
2. Compare open rates across different send times and days
3. Look for consistent patterns over the last 3-6 months
4. Note any seasonal variations

Step 2: Conduct A/B Tests

Create systematic tests to find your optimal timing:

Week-Long Test: Send the same email to similar audience segments on different days of the week. Keep the send time consistent (e.g., 10 AM) and measure open rates.

Time-of-Day Test: Pick your best-performing day and test different times: morning (9 AM), midday (1 PM), and evening (7 PM).

Seasonal Testing: Remember that optimal times can shift with seasons, holidays, and industry cycles. Test quarterly to stay current.

Step 3: Use Mailchimp’s Send Time Optimization

Mailchimp’s AI-powered Send Time Optimization feature analyzes your subscribers’ past engagement patterns and automatically sends emails when each individual is most likely to open them. This feature is available for Standard and Premium plans and can significantly improve your open rates without manual testing.

Advanced Timing Strategies

Segmentation-Based Timing

Different segments of your audience may have different optimal times:

• Job roles: CEOs might check email early morning or late evening, while mid-level managers peak at mid-morning
• Geographic regions: Adjust for time zones and local business cultures
• Engagement levels: Highly engaged subscribers might open emails regardless of timing, while less engaged ones need perfect timing

Frequency Considerations

Your sending schedule isn’t just about when to send one email, but how often to send:

• Weekly newsletters: Tuesday-Thursday mid-morning
• Promotional emails: Test weekends for B2C, stick to weekdays for B2B
• Transactional emails: Send immediately when triggered
• Re-engagement campaigns: Try off-peak times when inboxes are less crowded

Account for Email Client Behavior

Different email clients and devices have varying usage patterns:

• Mobile email: Often checked throughout the day, with peaks during commute times
• Desktop email: Primarily during business hours
• Gmail users: May see higher engagement during Google’s typical active hours

Seasonal and Event-Based Adjustments

Your optimal sending schedule should adapt to:

Holiday Seasons:

• Black Friday/Cyber Monday: Earlier in the day captures shoppers
• Christmas season: Evening sends work well for gift-shopping
• Summer months: Friday afternoon sends may perform better

Industry Events:

• Conference seasons in your industry
• Fiscal year-end periods
• Back-to-school timing for education-related businesses

Global Events: Stay aware of major news events, elections, or crises that might affect email engagement patterns.

Common Timing Mistakes to Avoid

1. Assuming one size fits all: Your Tuesday 10 AM success might not work for all campaigns or segments
2. Ignoring time zones: Sending at 10 AM EST means 7 AM PST – consider your audience distribution
3. Not testing regularly: Email habits evolve, especially post-pandemic
4. Forgetting about send volume: If you’re sending to 100,000 subscribers, your send might take hours to complete
5. Overlooking automated sequences: Welcome series and drip campaigns need different timing strategies than one-off campaigns

Implementation Tips for Mailchimp Users

Schedule Smart: Use Mailchimp’s scheduling feature to send emails at optimal times, even if you’re creating campaigns outside business hours.

Set Up Automations: For triggered emails (welcome messages, abandoned cart reminders), timing is often more important than for regular campaigns.

Monitor and Adjust: Set up custom reports to track performance by send time and day. Review monthly and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Consider Global Audiences: If you have international subscribers, consider using Mailchimp’s audience segmentation to send at appropriate local times.

Measuring Success Beyond Open Rates

While open rates are important, don’t forget to track:

• Click-through rates: Are people not just opening but engaging?
• Conversion rates: Are optimal open times also optimal for sales?
• Unsubscribe rates: Sending at the wrong time might annoy subscribers
• Forward rates: Good timing can increase social sharing

The Bottom Line

The best time to send your emails is when your specific audience is most likely to engage with them. While industry benchmarks provide a starting point, your data should drive your decisions. Use Mailchimp’s robust testing and reporting features to find your unique optimal timing, and remember that this may evolve over time.

Start with the industry standards – Tuesday through Thursday, 10 AM to 11 AM – but don’t stop there. Test systematically, segment thoughtfully, and always keep your audience’s lifestyle and preferences at the center of your timing strategy.

Remember: a perfectly timed email with mediocre content will underperform a great email sent at a suboptimal time. Timing is important, but it’s just one piece of the email marketing puzzle. Focus on delivering value to your subscribers, and then optimize the timing to maximize that value’s impact.