Wednesday Best Email Day in Q3, Late Afternoon Best Time of Day

The best day of the week to send email in the third quarter was Wednesday, according to the most recent eROI benchmark study of email-campaign clickthrough and open rates, reports MarketingCharts (via Direct magazine).

According to eROI’s Q3 data:

(See chart of open and click rates by day of week.)

• The average open rate on Wednesdays in the third quarter was 25.4 percent, and the average click rate was 3.9 percent.
• The second-best day for email was Monday, which had an average open rate of 24.7 percent and click rate of 3.1 percent.
• The highest average click rate - 5.0 percent - was on Saturday, which had the lowest open rate, however: 18.7 percent.
• The third-highest open and click rates were on Thursday: 23.6 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively.

Time of Day

As for the best time of day for open and click rates, during the heaviest email volumes (8 AM to 5 PM), there’s a marked upward trend as time passes, eROI said. That is, both open and click rates gradually increase:

• From a low of 2.6 percent at 8 AM to a high of 6.4 percent at 4 PM (down to 5.2 percent at 5 PM), in the case of click rates.
• From a low of 21.4 percent at 8 AM to a high of 34.1 percent at 5 PM, in the case of opens.

Consumer-Focused Industries

Benchmarks for various industries targeting consumers varied significantly in the third quarter, eROI found:

• The travel & lodging category was No. 1, with nearly half of email subscribers (46.7 percent) opening their emails and nearly 10 percent clicking through.
• Retail (brick and mortar) companies were at the back of the pack with a 19 percent open rate and a 1.6 percent click rate.
• In between were gaming, e-commerce, clothing, sports, food service, entertainment, publishing - in ascending order.

The Q3 report is available via eROI’s Resource Center (see “Quarterly Studies” section). Also see the second-quarter study results: “Wednesday Hump Applies to Emails, Too.“