Your Blueprint for the Best Day to Send Your Email Newsletter Across 4 Industries

As South Africa’s largest digital messaging platform, Everlytic is interested in discovering which communication patterns work best. This is why we used a science-backed approach to communication, called behavioural linguistics, to analyse the top-performing emails in four different industries.

Our research determined a targeted approach to communication is key for driving engagement rates, and one aspect of this is timing. Most of the top-performing emails were sent on certain days, which largely differed between industries. This shows us there is a best day to send your email newsletter. We broke down the results even further to share the best time and, in some cases, best month to send emails in these industries.

The findings are important as they reveal recipients are more receptive to communication based on when they receive emails. This is why considering when to send your emails is just as important as what you say in them.

Another important factor is how you present your email newsletter. Discover award-winning email layout strategies to design your next marketing mailer.

For our report, Top Language Tips for Better Emails: The Best in Financial Services Marketing, we analysed the top 50 emails sent by South Africa’s financial services industry through Everlytic’s platform in 2020. We found these emails accounted for nine organisations and were sent to existing clients only. Sales, acquisition, and tax certificate mailers were excluded from the dataset.

We ranked the emails according to the following two key engagement metrics:

• Open Rate – The percentage of recipients who opened an email out of the total number of subscribers to whom the email was sent.
• Click-Through Rate – The percentage of recipients who clicked on at least one link in an email message out of the total number of subscribers to whom the email was sent.

Our findings revealed the majority – 27% – of these successful emails were sent on Wednesdays, followed by Tuesdays and Thursdays (22%), and then Fridays (20%). Very few (4.5%) of the best-performing emails were sent on Mondays and Saturdays, and none on Sundays.

The best time to send your finance mailers is between 18:00 and 19:00 (18% of the emails analysed), followed by between 13:00 and 14:00, and then between 11:00 and 13:00.

In summary, these results indicate you are likely to receive a positive engagement rate if you send your financial mailers on Wednesday evenings.

The graphs below break down the stats.

Learn more language tips to convince your customers to take action in your finance emails by downloading our guide. 

We conducted a similar behavioural linguistics analysis to understand which communication patterns worked best for the top 50 sales-oriented emails sent by 15 South African retailers through Everlytic’s platform.  

Again, we ranked the emails according to the engagement metrics of open and click-through rates. We pulled the data from 2.4-billion retail-related bulk emails sent during 2021, and we excluded emails sent to less than 100 recipients.  

The findings revealed the emails sent earlier in the week – especially on Tuesdays (43.5%), followed by Wednesdays (23.9%), and then Mondays (19.9%) – and towards the end of the business day – between 16:00 and 17:00 (30.4%) – performed best.  

The next best times to send retail emails were between 8:00 and 9:00, 10:00 and 11:00, 12:00 and 13:00, and 14:00 and 15:00, which all tied at 10.9% of the best-performing emails.

See the graphs below:

Learn proven insights from the top retail emails sent in South Africa by downloading our free guide. 

Email marketing is a dominant medium for communicating travel- and tourism-themed messages – especially following the Covid-19 pandemic. Our research into the communication sent by this industry in 2022 found brands were trying to leverage the rise in interest and expenditure following the travel bans imposed by the pandemic.  

The top 20 travel- and tourism-themed emails sent by South African brands through Everlytic’s platform in 2022 were pulled from a dataset of more than 3.9-billion bulk emails – excluding emails sent to fewer than 100 recipients. As with the previous two behavioural linguistics analyses, the emails were ranked according to open and click-through rates. 

The best day to send your email newsletter in the travel and tourism industry is Thursday (34.8% of the best-performing emails), followed by Monday (26.1%). The best times were mid-morning and early afternoon, as between 9:00 and 10:00 accounted for 26.1% of the top-performing emails, followed by between 14:00 and 15:00 (17.4%).  

For this analysis, we also considered the best month of the year. February (34.8% of the top-performing emails) followed by October (17.4%) saw the highest levels of engagement.  

Our analysis determined the reasons for these peaks could be due to February being the first full month after the festive season and a time when many are pining for the past holiday season. Thinking of upcoming holidays becomes a coping mechanism, making this an ideal month to send your communications. The rise in engagement in October signals a time when many plan their upcoming festive season holidays.  

See the graphs below and download the full report for free.

If you want to learn the best tactics for sending a travel email newsletter, read this case study to learn how Discovery Vitality ignited travellers’ wanderlust in a travel newsletter, which was also sent in October. 

The final behavioural linguistics analysis we’ve conducted (so far) was on the top-performing bulk emails in the education and training sector. Again, we sought out the 20 emails with the highest open and click-through rates from the dataset, which comprised of more than 110-million bulk emails sent through Everlytic’s platform in 2022. These emails were categorised in the education and training industry. Emails sent to fewer than 100 recipients were excluded.

The research found the best day to send an education or training email newsletter was Tuesday, which accounted for 35% of the best-performing emails. This was followed by Thursday (20%) and Monday and Friday, which tied (15%).

Emails sent in the late afternoon – between 16:00 and 17:00 – saw the highest engagement (20% of the emails sent), followed by between 14:00 and 15:00 (15%) and then between 08:00 and 12:00 (10%).

As with our analysis of the best-performing travel and tourism emails, we also considered whether a particular month stood out among these top-performing emails. We found July and September tied at 20% of the emails sent, positioning these months as optimal times to send your education- and training-related emails.

We theorise July is a time for communication about school or university holidays, and upcoming exam dates are sent in September. February was the next best month to send emails with 15% of the top-performing emails being sent during this month.

Check out the graphs below:

Learn more strategies used by the top-performing mailers sent in the education sector to ensure your emails are effective and stand out.

Our research gives you some valuable insight into the best day to send your email newsletter across four industries. If you’re looking for a different industry or if you want to be sure of when your specific audience is the most receptive to your communication, there is one way you can check. It’s by using A/B split testing.

This tool lets you send two versions of the same email to equally-sized sample groups of your contacts on different days and at different times to determine when the best day to send your email newsletter is based on key engagement metrics.

You can also test different sections of your email, such as, the subject line, preview text, and experiment with personalisation.

Learn top tips for better email engagement in travel and tourism in our free marketing report.

We’re accustomed to the cliché ‘size matters’, but when it comes to your email marketing, it’s more a case of ‘timing matters’. Our research into the top-performing emails in four industries demonstrates there is a best day to send your email newsletter, as audiences are more receptive to certain communication at certain times. Consider this your blueprint for optimal sending days, times, and months – with a general rule to avoid sending content on Sundays. However, we also suggest you conduct an A/B split test and track the performance of your emails using a detailed report. Using these tools will ensure you send your emails at times when your recipients are most likely to engage with them.