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When To Send Friday Emails for the Best Engagement
How To Choose the Best Send Time and Why It Matters
Tyler Mason
October 14th, 2024
I saw this joke on Reddit a few days ago:
What’s the difference between a good joke and a bad joke timing.
It’s… probably funnier when you tell it verbally.
Here’s a more important question: What’s the difference between a newsletter being opened versus one that sits in an inbox until the receiver finally hits ‘archive?’
Timing.
Sending your newsletter at the optimal time is vital if you want to reach your audience and boost your response rate.
What is the best time to send an email newsletter?
What are the best and worst days to send a newsletter?
Does sending a newsletter at the best time actually matter?
Key Takeaways
Sending emails at the best time is essential for growing and maintaining an audience.
When to send an email on a Friday depends on your audience, industry, and the content you provide.
The best way to discover your optimal sending time is by leveraging analytics through A/B testing.
Table of Contents
Understanding Email Open Rates on Fridays
It’s impossible to make fish adapt to your schedule. That’s why, instead of saying ‘I’m only going to fish on Sundays at 3 pm,’ successful anglers ask ‘When are the fish biting?’
The same can be said for choosing the best time to send a marketing email. Like with fishing, here’s the main point to keep in mind:
The best time to send a marketing email depends on your audience.
Ultimately, testing your specific audience is the only way to accurately gauge the best send times.
That being said – by looking at open rates in each industry, we can get an idea of when most people respond best.
Disclaimer: Many stats show that Fridays aren’t the optimal day to send a marketing email. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. The most important thing when choosing a send time is that you adapt to your readers.
The Best Time of Day To Send an Email
According to our 2023 data at beehiiv, the days with the highest open rates across all industries were Sundays and Mondays.
The best times to send an email were right before lunch at 10 am GMT (44.5% open rate) and right after lunch from 1-2 pm GMT (41% open rate).
Those times aren’t rigid, though.
Different audiences react differently to the same send times.
Time zones, seasons, holidays, and major events can impact open rates.
Why Trust Me? I’m an email nerd. I spend the better part of most days researching the best practices in email marketing, newsletters, and analytics. When I’m not reading, I’m writing and testing the methods I talk about.
Time Zones
One of the greatest parts about growing a newsletter audience is that you aren’t confined to a single location. Connecting with readers around the world is easier than ever, and creators who use that to their advantage will come out ahead.
What does that mean for choosing the best time to send your emails? Adapt your sending schedule to your audience’s time zones. Ask yourself:
Where are most of my readers located?
What time zone does the majority of my audience fall into?
Can I segment my list to ensure everyone gets an email at a time that’s best for them?
Thankfully, most email service providers allow for audience segmentation – so considering time zones isn’t as difficult as it once was.
Here’s how you can use beehiiv’s segmentation feature to analyze and adjust your sending practices.
Midday Email Sends: Pros and Cons
You might think lunch breaks are a good time to send emails because many of your readers might be on their phones. And you’d be right (mostly).
Across the board, the highest open rates we’ve seen have been between 10 am and 2 pm GMT. This dips slightly right around noon, but it’s still better than sending an email late at night or early in the morning. That stays true for all weekdays – so keep those times in mind if you plan on sending your emails on a Friday.
Morning vs. Evening
If a midday sending time isn’t part of your playbook, there’s nothing wrong with sending an email in the morning or evening. Just don’t get too extreme.
For example: beehiiv creators who sent an email at 8 am saw an average open rate of 37.9% (about 7% less than peak sending times). Compare that with those who sent at 2 am, though, and you’re looking at a 23% drop in open rates.
What that means for you as a creator:
If you’re set on sending an email in the evening, aim for 6 pm to 9 pm.
If mornings are what your audience likes, shoot for 8 am to 11 am.
Peak Times for Best Email Opens on Fridays
We touched on the best times to send a Friday email in our last section, but for simplicity’s sake:
The highest newsletter open rates we’ve seen have been between 10 am and 2 pm GMT.
The second-highest open rates are in the evenings (7 pm to 9 pm).
The worst open rates are in the early morning hours (2 am to 6 am).
The Best Day of the Week To Send an Email
I have to start this section with a big disclaimer:
The best day of the week to send an email is subjective. What works in one industry might not work in another, and no two audiences are identical.
That being said, I can’t definitively say what day will work best for you. But I can share the stats we’ve seen. At the very least, it’s a good starting point for A/B testing!
Friday vs. Monday Engagement Comparison
For beehiiv creators in 2023, the difference between open rates on Fridays and Mondays was about 1%. Click-through rates were identical at 1.6%.
Which day is ultimately better?
I’m going to sound like a broken record in this article but… it depends. How your audience reacts to emails sent on a Friday versus those sent on a Monday should determine which day you settle on.
Friday vs. Mid-Week Engagement Stats
While overall, Sundays and Mondays saw the highest open rates in 2023, the rest of the weekdays weren’t far behind.
The difference between Friday versus Tuesday - Thursday was less than 1%. Now, if you’re sending emails to a list of one million people, 1% matters. For many creators who are just starting or are trying to optimize their send times, though, this shouldn’t be enough to derail your email schedule.
Disclaimer: The above stats were taken from our 2024 State of Email Newsletters at beehiiv. Other marketing stats (like those gathered by Hubspot) show a much higher variance in open rates. Keep in mind, though: Hubspot’s marketing stats are for U.S. marketers in general. Newsletter stats don’t always follow the crowd!
Strategies for Maximizing the Success of Your Emails on Fridays
Choosing the best time to send emails on a Friday is only one part of creating an effective campaign. For high open rates and engagement, you’ll need to take advantage of A/B testing and effectively utilize your email analytics.
A/B Testing
I could share every stat we’ve tracked at beehiiv, compare it with Statista’s marketing facts, and tell you exactly what results other people have seen (and those results are good). The fact is, though, you’ll never know what time will work for your audience unless you test it.
At its core, A/B testing is exactly what it sounds like. Send an email (A), send a slightly different email (B), and compare their results. Rinse and repeat until you’ve hit the KPI you’re looking for.
Here are a few ways you can use A/B testing to grow your audience.
Try sending the same email with different subject lines.
Adjust the subject line length.
Add or remove emojis from your subject line.
Utilize personalization.
Adjust the design of your email body, including optimizing it for mobile devices.
Change the email body copy. Tell a story, add or remove an image, etc.
A/B testing is the #1 way you can determine the best time to send an email on Fridays. And with beehiiv’s Scale plan, setting up your own A/B test is easy.
From your beehiiv dashboard, go to “Write -> Posts -> A/B Test” and enter your two email subject lines. You’ll then be able to adjust the duration of your A/B test and the sample size you want to send it to.
For a more in-depth look at how to create your first A/B test in beehiiv, check out our guide here.
Leveraging Email Analytics
Say you’ve A/B tested segments of your audience, refined your subject lines, and tested again. You have open rates, engagement stats, and maybe even a little bit of feedback. What now?
Leverage your email analytics.
To put it bluntly – the best email analytics in the world won’t do you any good unless you use them. Don’t be afraid to dig into the numbers to see what’s working and what you should drop.
Here are a few analytics that are particularly useful when you want to grow and monetize a newsletter audience.
Total subscribers
Email open rate
Unsubscribe rate
Referral rate
Click-through rate
All of the above-mentioned analytics are available in your beehiiv dashboard (for Scale plans) by going to “Analyze -> Subscribers Report.”
Other Factors Affecting Email Open Rates
Sending an email in 2024 isn’t the same as sending an email through AOL in the early ‘90s. And whether or not your email gets opened depends on more than just sending it at the right time.
Here are a few other factors that might affect your email open rates this year.
Choosing the Most Effective Content
Are you interested in the same things you were 15 years ago?
Imagine that your best friend from elementary school reached out today and said:
Hey! I was thinking, we could glue popsicle sticks together and have pretend sword fights in the backyard. I know you love that stuff.
Now, maybe you do still enjoy pretend sword fights. That’s okay.
The important thing to remember is that people’s interests change and audiences aren’t stagnant. As your subscriber base grows, it’s essential that you keep an eye on what types of content your readers are enjoying today.
Maintaining a Regular Sending Schedule
My wife and I started regularly going to the gym a couple of months ago. It took a few weeks before it became our routine, and now it’s second nature. We expect that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, our alarms will go off at 6:30 am and we’ll head to the gym.
Timing your email sending can be similar.
While it’s important to pick a time that works best for your audience, constantly adjusting your send times as you chase the perfect open rate won’t help in the long run.
That’s especially important if you’re a newsletter creator. Once you’ve decided on a day and time to send your newsletter, stick to it. Give your audience a chance to warm up to receiving your emails; eventually, it’ll become routine for them.
So instead of your readers getting an email and thinking:
Oh, right! I need to find time to read this.
They’ll say:
Hey, it’s Friday! I can’t wait to see the latest newsletter.
Demographic Insights
Audience segmentation is essential in making sure you’re not only sending the right emails – you’re sending them to the right people, too.
Breaking your audience into demographics is perfect if you want to tailor your emails to subscribers based on their age, sex, nationality, or occupation.
Email List Cleanliness
It doesn’t matter how many subscribers you have if they aren’t engaged. 40,000 subscribers is an awesome achievement, but it’s not as impressive if only 10% of your audience actually reads what you send.
And it’s not once engaged; always engaged, either.
Regularly cleaning your email list comes with a ton of perks.
Improved deliverability
Boosted open rates
Increased engagement
Higher conversion rates
What’s the best way to clean my list?
Use double opt-in when adding subscribers.
Make it easy for unengaged readers to unsubscribe if they choose.
Segment your audience.
Remove inactive subscribers after you’ve taken reasonable steps to re engage them.
Google’s New Security Requirements
2024 is a big year for changes to the bulk sending of emails. Google and Yahoo are requiring email senders to authenticate their emails, ensure unsubscribing is easy, and follow new spam thresholds.
What does that mean for newsletter creators?
Creators who don’t pay attention to the new security requirements will likely see a hit in their open rates due to low deliverability.
Creating a DMARC policy is more important than ever.
Tips for Crafting the Perfect Email Campaign
A lot of work goes into creating some of the most effective email campaigns. Knowing what to say, who to say it to, and when to say it doesn’t happen by chance. Here are a couple of tips to keep in mind the next time you send a Friday email.
Personalization Strategies
Your audience is made up of real people who can tell if you don’t really care about them as individuals. Personalizing your emails is an easy way to build rapport before that ever becomes an issue.
When and how you choose to personalize your emails is up to you and the results you’ve seen. You can personalize your subject lines and the email copy, and even tailor entire emails based on past interactions.
Personalization can have a major impact on your monetization efforts, too. A 2017 study from Accenture Strategy showed that 41% of consumers switched companies because of a lack of trust and poor personalization.
People want to know you care about them, and personalizing the emails you send on Fridays is an effective way to show that.
The Influence of Subject Lines on Friday Email Success
A subject line is the first thing people see when they open an email, so it’s easily one of the most important parts of growing and maintaining an audience. And, though what’s considered an ‘effective’ subject line will vary depending on your audience, there are a few best practices all creators should keep in mind.
Subject Line Dos and Don’ts
Here’s a fun test. Open your email client and count how many emails you’ve received today. My least-used Gmail account has 35 emails that made it to my inbox. Those are just the emails I’ve subscribed to or haven’t yet archived. My spam folder has plenty more.
And remember: those 35 emails are from just one email inbox (I have four) on a relatively slow Sunday. In general, email users receive 150+ emails every day. Sending a Friday email that people actually want to read is the best way to boost engagement and response rates.
You have to meet your audience where they’re at.
I can’t count how many times one of my copywriting mentors drilled that phrase into my head. And I’m glad she did. Because the fact is, what we want to say to an email list doesn’t matter.
What our audiences want to read is what’s important.
When choosing the best time to send an email on Friday, picture your audience. Not just as a whole, but as individuals.
What’s your ideal reader doing?
Are they at work?
Are they taking a break for lunch?
Are they spending time with their family?
What’s on your audience’s mind?
Do they have an inbox full of emails to sort through after a busy day?
Are you catching them right before they leave for the weekend?
What are they thinking about right now?
It might help to keep those thoughts in mind the next time you design a Friday newsletter. Because if you only write what you want to say, your emails won’t be attractive enough to read. And the longer an email sits in an inbox, the less likely it is to ever be opened.
Let’s wrap this section up with a little TL;DR that you can refer to when choosing the best time to send an email on Friday.
Think about your audience and when they’re most likely to engage.
Test out different days and times to see when your readers respond best.
Adjust your content to what your audience wants to see.
Clean your list regularly to weed out inactive subscribers that could otherwise skew your open rates.
Follow a routine sending schedule so readers know when to expect your next email.
Conclusion
Choosing the best time to send an email on Friday maximizes audience engagement and boosts open rates. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t work, so tailoring your content (and your timing) to your readers is essential.
Finding a newsletter platform that shares your goals and has the features you need is a great first step in sending your content to the right people – at the right time.
Take a look at how easy it is to design and schedule your first newsletter for free at beehiiv today!
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