Quoted on eMarketer a new research by ExactTarget suggests that the "best days for opens are not necessarily the best for clicks". Of course, maximizing open rates is important for brand exposure, while generating clicks is the key if the goal is conversion. The research found out that if you send out your commercial emails Wednesday through Friday you get the highest opening rates, but if you're looking for clicks, than the week-end is the best time. According to ExactTarget data, over 97% of campaigns are sent Monday through Friday.

Maybe the fact that most of the promotion mails are sent on week-days, causes people to see less unknown mails in their mailboxes and so the rate of visiting the site (or even opening the mail) increases significantly.

Posted by: Deniz Utku at October 1, 2005 01:58 AM

I think the best days for email marketing are the weekdays when majority of the people are working. During the weekends, people tend to be away from their computers and may not check their mailbox.

This means they will get your message when they return on the next working day together with a lot of other mail that has piled up during the weekend. Chances are all but the most important messages will be deleted in a rush without a second look.

Posted by: eTechSupport at November 17, 2005 12:35 PM