Welcome to Vol.33 of Email Advice in Your Inbox!

Our favourite time of the week is here!

We're often told that the timing of your email sending matters. Though many may disagree, it still impacts your email engagement.

Today we're going to look at a strategy we shared recently that may help boost your email engagement, and at some numbers around this that you might find interesting.


You'll also get your regular dose of unmissable email tools, resources and inspiration. It's why you're here, isn't it?

 

Here's what you'll learn this week
 

• The best time to send your emails.
   

• This week's top email resources
   

• Email expert practical tip of the week
   

• Smart email senders we're learning from
   

• The fun stuff: Taking shots at abandoned carts
  
   

Let's get cooking 🍳

The best time to send your emails

The time you send your emails can often be a controversial topic for email senders.

There's so much information out there stating the ideal sending day or time to optimise email engagement, so what can you believe when it comes to your emails?

Take this tip by Jay Schwedelson, a friend of our Email Advice in Your Inbox community, and email expert, for example:
 

We shared this post on Linkedin because we think it carries merit and is a practice we follow for this newsletter.

Little did we know that this perspective would wind up being a little, well...controversial 👀

The main argument from the over 100 folks who commented seemed to stem from the lack of data supporting this claim.

And this was a great lesson for us too.
 

Just because it works for us doesn't necessarily mean it's accurate, so the jury was out.

This is where Steve Henderson, Head of Deliverability at Emersys comes to the rescue with some data about this topic to support his perspective and, potentially, help you drive the most engagement when choosing what time to send your emails.
 

Let's look at Steve's insights, what the numbers say, and also share some insights on why this strategy might just make sense as a tool to boost email engagement.
 

Ask good questions
Expect good answers
 

Our friend and fellow email expert, Jordie van Rijn, posed some brilliant questions, which is why you'll see his name here.

Along with Jordie, a few other folks who commented were curious to define if anyone had some statistics to back the numbers Jay shared.

There were also some personal testaments to this working for a few email senders who commented, but no data to support the metrics.

This is where Steve jumps in.
 

Steve also commented on the relationship between these sending times and engagement rates (meaning clicks within campaigns as the measure):
 

Here's where things get interesting
 

We're going to TLDR the research Steve ran, but we highly recommend you read the comments in full on the post here.
 

• A study run for Emersys email senders in October 2024.
• Email campaigns below 10k and above 1M per campaign.
• Hour split into first 10 minutes and the following 50 minutes.
• Test to determine unique click rates (unique-contacts-clicking-at-least-one-link / total-contacts).
• Assessed 100 billion email sends and over 2 billion link clicks.
   

Here are the results:
 

• Volumes:
  
  On-the-hour sends made up 73% of email volume (Very largest sends excluded)
   
• Click rates: 
  
  - Sending in first ten minutes = 1.345 click %
  - Sending at other times = 1.764 click %
   

At these volumes, sending throughout the hour generated over 169 million more link clicks than if they had followed the default instinct of sending on the hour.

Steve adds a few points:

Find what works for your emails

This is a pretty substantive data set, but it's by no means comprehensive.

The goal is to find what works for YOUR emails.

Your ultimate aim is to drive engagement. If you send emails at times when your emails aren't simply clumped in with the rest of those on-the-hour senders, you diminish your chances for engagement.

This is even more crucial during busy email periods like BFCM.

Give this a try and let us know if it helps 🙂


PS: There's a great lesson in today's knowledge. If you're going to share knowledge, make sure you can substantiate your claims.

This rings especially true when sharing information from others.
 

Changing your approach to send times?

Your feedback is invaluable!

If today's knowledge has prompted a change in when you send your emails, we'd love to hear your thoughts.
 

Let us know 👇

Email resources of the week

New articles & resources to help you become a better email sender
 

Email Expert Practical Tip of the Week

Today's insight comes from DTC and e-commerce email expert and agency owner, Mike Galvin.

Mike share three tools you can use to begin understanding, assessing and maintaining your email deliverability.

The trick is to understand how these platforms work and how to make the best out of them, so follow folks like Mike to learn more as you grow.
 

PS: Follow Mike on LinkedIn here 👈

Smart email senders we're learning from

We believe that learning from some of the greatest in the industry is one of the best ways to improve.

We usually share three emails we've found that followed sound email principles
 

Head on over and take a look here 👀
 

Some more (email) fun to make your day better

We all know you're putting items in your cart, instead of your wishlist, just hoping for a discount 👀

Don't worry, there's no judgement here. We're doing the same, especially with BFCM happening next week.

This gem we found in The Marketing Millenials' newsletter was too good not to share. We should probably cut Zuck some slack. He's not actually that bad for a lizard person.


(PS: Head on over to sign up for The Marketing  Millenials' newsletter).
 

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