The Best Times to Send a Newsletter (2023 Beginners Guide)

Every day, over 300 billion emails are sent out around the world (Statista). Yet, the majority of emails are never opened as you’ll learn below.

There’s no doubt that email is still one of the most powerful forms of communication—especially when it comes to reaching large sums of people.

But, while people are hopping in and out of their email inboxes throughout the week, it doesn’t always mean they’re reading every newsletter… including yours.

In the marketing world, timing is everything. When it comes to email, you need to understand how to send the right message to the right people at the right time. The reality is that your newsletter probably isn’t the only one showing up in your subscribers’ inboxes. Your readers likely have dozens of emails popping up in their inbox every single day. If you want to ensure you’re not getting lost in the crowd, you need to know the best times to send newsletters.

Once you understand when you should send your emails, not only will you be able to optimize your open rates and click-through rates, but you’ll also be able to improve your newsletter revenue.

In this guide, we’ll break down the best times to send an email newsletter. You’ll learn what the best days are to send a newsletter, and also what time of day gives your newsletter the best odds of being opened. And, if you want to avoid a few rookie mistakes when it comes to email send times, keep reading to the end.

Let’s dive in.

Why You Should Know the Best Times to Send Newsletters

Marketing takes a ton of work. You put in the time to craft persuasive copy, a catchy subject line, great design, and effective CTAs. But… There's just one problem.

If you don’t send your email newsletter at the right time, you’ll soon be signing your email newsletter’s death certificate.

If your newsletter falls flat, don’t just rush back to the drawing board to fix the content. You should only optimize your email design or copy once you’re sure there isn’t a problem with your send times.

You’ve got to remember that an email inbox isn’t a quiet, wide-open field. It’s a chaotic, crowded intersection filled with noise coming from every direction. When someone jumps in their inbox, they don’t always have time to go through dozens, if not hundreds of emails. They might read a few at the top and carry on with their day.

The emails at the bottom? They’re likely to be left forgotten, deleted, or worse yet—marked as spam—as the reader’s frustration with their inbox clutter reaches a breaking point. Optimizing your send times is one of the many things you can do to improve your email deliverability.

Here are 3 ways sending your newsletter at the right time can help you:

1. Boost Your Open Rates

Want to know the best way to get your readers to open your email? Make sure they see it in their inbox.

The average open rate across all industries is 21.33% (Mailchimp). If you want to hit this target, if not exceed it, then you have to send your newsletter at the right time.

Think about it. If you can’t get your email in front of your newsletter subscribers, you’ll never be able to get them to read it, let alone click on it. Most email marketers will say that getting your email opened should be your main goal. But, the reality is that your first step should be to get your email seen. That’s made possible by ensuring you send your newsletter when your subscribers are most likely to hop in their inbox.

2. Increase Your Click-Through Rates

Imagine everyone on your list opened your email. That’s a win, right? Well, if they aren’t engaging with your email and clicking through, then that means something went wrong.

Remember, poor engagement doesn’t always mean there’s a problem with your copy. If you send your newsletter when someone’s in the middle of making dinner or just starting their work day, your reader might get someone to quickly scan your email before getting distracted with something else.

By determining the best send times, you’ll be able to build an engaged newsletter audience. This is because you’ll now have your subscribers’ undivided attention to read your entire emails, making them more likely to click through to your site.

3. Improve Your Conversion Rates

For many newsletters, the ultimate goal is to ensure you’re generating revenue to ensure you can keep your newsletter or business running.

As mentioned above, if your readers don’t have enough time to open, read, and click through your newsletter, chances are they’re not going to have time to browse product pages and fill out forms. By understanding the best time to send out newsletters, you won’t just improve your opens and clicks. You’ll improve your conversions too.

Best Days And Times To Send Email Newsletters (Getting Started)

The best way to determine your optimal send time is to understand your newsletter readers better. But, if you want a quick solution, these general email send-time guidelines are widely accepted by the email newsletter community.

Or, If you’re just starting off and don’t have much time or data to test yet, then these tips are a good starting point. Just remember to keep reading, as they may not always work.

• Midweek Trio. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday have traditionally been marketers’ favorite days to send email newsletters. When in doubt, send your email on one of these three days.

• Midday Delight. If you’re ever unsure what time of day to send a newsletter, stick with the middle. It’s probably best to avoid a 6 am or 6 pm newsletter if you can. Instead, send it out somewhere in between when people aren’t getting ready for work or coming home after their shift.

• Day ‘n’ Night. If you have the choice between sending during the day or at night, then your best bet is to stick to daytime. Unless your audience is nocturnal, make sure you send your newsletter out during the day.

• Avoid Weekends. What do people do on weekends? Well, they’re probably not at work. Most people use the weekend to run errands and adventure outside of the house. This means less bumming around to look at their email inbox.

• Monday Blues. Once the weekend’s over, people sink back into their workweek where they’re faced with a pile-up of emails. What do they do next? Select all and delete.

Best Day to Send Email Newsletter (Key Insights)

According to data from 14 email send time studies, it was discovered that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were the best days to send emails. The findings were based on open rates as well as click-through rates. Of the three days, the data showed that the absolute best day to send a newsletter is Tuesday, followed by Thursday, and finally, Wednesday.

If you think about it, these midweek days kind of make sense. Most people are doing a ton of different activities on their days off– which are typically on the weekend. They don’t have time for email. So Saturday and Sunday are out of the question. Fridays have people distracted by the upcoming weekend. Mondays have people sinking back into their office desks only to catch up on their work from the weekend.

If you’re going to make sure people see your newsletter, then you have to hit them with an email when they’re in the routine of their workweek.

A Few Caveats to the Rule

Now that you’ve read what days and times you should send your emails, it’s time to look at why the recommendations above won’t always work.

B2B vs. B2C

As mentioned above, the your key to sending your newsletter at the right time comes down to understanding your audience. People don’t use their personal and professional inboxes in the same way. They also don’t use them at the same time.

When you send your emails is also dependent on whether your newsletter is for a consumer or business audience. If you’re sending a B2B newsletter, it’s probably best to send it during work hours. However, if you’re sending a B2C newsletter, try to send it during a lunch break.

Special Holidays/Events

Nearly 40% of consumers admit to having over 50 unread emails in their inbox at any given time (Sinch). During special events or holidays, this number inflates even more.

If you want to stand out from all the noise, don’t be afraid to send your newsletter at an earlier or later date or time of day. While it’s important to stay consistent, it’s better to send at a strange time than to let your email get lost in the crowd.

Supply & Demand

Want to know something ironic about the information in this article? The more marketers that read it, the more invalid the information becomes.

Why?

Because of the laws of supply and demand.

Because if every marketer understood the best times to send a newsletter, they would all send their newsletters at the same time on the same day. However, this would drastically increase the supply of emails and would clutter everyone’s inboxes. That would, in turn, make the best time to send a newsletter the worst time of all.

While the sad reality is that not every marketer will read this article, the good news is that not every marketer will read this newsletter. So, you can probably get away with the suggested send times.

However, as time goes on, more marketers will discover these optimal send times and dilute them. And… this leads us to the most important tip to remember when it comes to understanding the best time to send email newsletters…

Best Time to Send Email Newsletters (Testing Campaigns)

If you’re still here, that means you really want to get your send times right so you can get more opens, clicks, and conversions. Ready for the best way to determine newsletter send times?

Well, remember those send times we shared with you above? Forget them. While those are good starting points, if you want to ensure you’re optimizing your newsletter for the best possible time, then you need to do something else.

You need to test.

When it comes to figuring out the best send times, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all answer. Sure, you’ll probably have better results sending on a Tuesday at 10 am rather than a Saturday night at 9 pm. But, if you want to find the best possible results for your readers, you have to perform A/B tests or split tests.

With beehiiv, you can A/B test your sending times to easily determine the best time to reach your newsletter subscribers. Not only does beehiiv offer simple split testing, but it also allows you to dive deep into newsletter analytics so you can better understand your audience. Sign up for a free beehiiv account today and optimize your newsletter send times to ramp up your engagement and conversions.