What is the best time for sending a campaign?

There's no single perfect answer, the best sending time depends on your audience, your content, and what you want people to do after reading. The guidance below gives you a solid starting point, but the most reliable data will always come from your own campaign reports.

Why timing matters

Emails sent at the right moment are more likely to be seen and acted on. An email that arrives while your contact is actively checking their inbox has a much better chance of being opened than one that gets buried under everything that came in while they were in a meeting. Small improvements in timing can have a meaningful impact on your open rates over time.

Day of the week

As a default, send on working days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are widely cited as peak days in email marketing research, though keep in mind that everyone knows this, which means more competition in the inbox on those days.

Monday mornings tend to be unpredictable: inboxes fill up over the weekend and contacts may be catching up rather than engaging with marketing emails. Unsubscribe rates are generally lowest on Sundays and Mondays.

For consumer audiences, weekends can work well, especially for content that requires time and attention rather than quick action, like a long-form newsletter or a curated product selection.

Time of day

• If your email requires action, clicking, buying, registering, mornings tend to perform better.
• If it requires reading and consideration, evenings often work well.
• For business audiences: 10:00–11:00 and 13:00–15:00 are reliable windows.
• For consumer audiences: 07:00–09:00 or 18:00–21:00 on weekdays; mornings on weekends.
• Mobile users tend to check email early morning and late evening.

Sending across time zones

If your audience is spread across multiple time zones, consider creating segments per region and scheduling separate sends so each group receives the campaign at the right local time. A campaign that arrives at 10:00 in Belgium arrives at 04:00 in New York, not ideal for engagement.

Using workflows for smarter timing

Workflows give you the most precise control over timing because they trigger relative to a contact's own behaviour. An email sent an hour after someone fills in a form, or on the morning of their appointment, is more impactful than any generic send time. Explore workflows when timing relative to the contact matters more than a fixed schedule.

Learning from your own reports

Your campaign reports show when contacts opened and clicked your emails. Export the detailed results from a few campaigns and look for patterns. If most opens happen within two hours of sending, your timing is already well-matched to your audience. If opens are spread over 48 hours, timing is less critical for your specific list.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Assuming general research applies directly to your list. Industry benchmarks are a starting point, not a rule. Your audience may behave quite differently from the average.
• Sending to a global list at a single fixed time without considering time zones. Segment by region for large international sends.
• Changing your send time frequently without tracking the impact. Test methodically, change one variable at a time and compare results before drawing conclusions.
• Ignoring time-of-day patterns in your existing reports. Before trying a new time, look at what your data already tells you about when your contacts engage.

Next steps

• Check your last five campaign reports and note when the majority of opens occurred. That's your audience's current preferred time.
• Use AB testing with scheduled sends to test two different send times on the same campaign.
• For time-sensitive communications, explore Flexmail's workflow triggers to send relative to contact behaviour rather than a fixed schedule.

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