Report: Midday Marketing Emails Have the Highest Click Rate

A new report published by Informz has revealed that time of day still plays a role in the click and open rates of marketing emails.

The “2016 Association Email Marketing Benchmark Report” discovered that emails sent during the middle of the day had the highest click rate (16.56 percent). However, the highest open rate (37.38 percent) was recorded in the evening hours.

Open rates remained steady throughout the week (between 35 and 39 percent), with the highest amount of opens coming on Saturday (39.60 percent). However, click rate was at its lowest on Saturdays (12.21 percent). During the week, the highest open rate was realized on Friday, at 37.43 percent.

Overall, open rates were slightly higher in 2015 at 36 percent, compared to approximately 35 percent in 2014. Delivery rates have also remained around 98 percent. More than three-quarters (76.67 percent) of email opens occur just once, with mobile only having the highest percentage at 35.8 percent.

Marketing Email Transactions and Time of Day

Past research has indicated that time of day plays an important role in how recipients respond to email marketing efforts. The “Q4 2015 Email Benchmark Report” from Experian found that the highest percentage of email transactions in the fourth quarter (26.3 percent) occurred between 8 a.m. and 11:59 a.m. This percentage dropped off as the day progressed.

“Finding the best time-of-day and day-of-week for a particular brand requires understanding the type of mailing, the offer or message and the selected customer segment,” the researchers concluded.

In terms of the best days to send marketing emails, email transaction percentages remained relatively steady throughout the week, hovering between 12 and 16 percent.