When is the Best Time to Send an Email Promotion or Newsletter?

Affiliate marketers obviously want to get the most “bang for their buck” when sending email promotions or newsletters and the big question is: When is the best time to send them out? If I were to summarize – Tuesday through Thursday mornings are generally good times. You don’t want to send an email or newsletter out first thing Monday morning because most people ignore their in boxes over the weekend. You don't want to get lost in the massive POP on Monday morning and you don’t want to miss your readers with a Friday, “Oops, I left the office early” email or newsletter.

When determining the optimum time to send (I'm defining "send" as when to schedule your email for delivery) emails, you need to break the question down into three parts:

1) When do you want your readers to actually receive your email?
2) What factors drive how long it takes for the emails to actually reach each reader?
3) Do you have the resources necessary to continuously send emails at a regular predetermined time?

To answer these questions we will use the formula below to calculate the best time to send your emails and newsletters.

"Time to Send Formula"

DOT = Desired Open Time - the first hour time period in which you want your readers to receive and open your email
IF = ISP Factor - the duration it takes ISPs to actually deliver emails
SD = Send Duration - the time it takes software/ASP solutions to send a given volume of emails
QF = Queue Factor - the period of time emails may be in the queue behind other email campaigns
ST = Schedule Time - the time emails are scheduled for distribution

Ok, now you are probably thinking to yourself, I didn’t know I had to be a rocket scientist to send out emails. Well you don't. The point of the above formula is really to get you to understand and think about the many variables in the email delivery process that may be beyond your control. And in particular, that you consider how long it takes for emails to actually reach your reader’s in box.