email-open-times | Pebble Design

The Best Time to Send Out Email Marketing Campaigns for the Hotel and Tourism Industry

Email marketing still remains a popular marketing channel despite the exponential growth of social media. It appears that traditional marketing can be highly effective as social media users tend to check in on their email for social media updates.

Pinpointing the best day and time to send a campaign is difficult because ideal sending times vary between industries, B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to Consumer), and may also depend on the segment of a list you’re sending to.

Here is what we’ve found to be the best send times across the Hotel and Tourism industry

Email Opens by Time of Day – More people open emails during the day than at night. We see the highest open rates between 11am and 2pm, especially for the corporate or B2B subscribers. Leisure customers vary more and tend to open their emails in the early evening. Subscribers are likely to open emails after 12pm in their respective timezones, and the most active hours are 2-5pm. You may find that changing the time that you send your emails will change your percentage of opens.

Email Opens by Day of Week – More emails are sent during the week than on weekends, with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday being the highest volume days and Thursday having the highest open rates overall (especially for B2B). By Tuesday, most B2B’ers are in full work flow, they’ve cleared any backlog and are likely to be motivated with heads down at work. On Wednesday and their momentum is maintained, but by Thursday there is a mental note lodged in their head that they are nearer to the weekend. Bang! This is your moment of opportunity and we have found that Thursday is the best day of the week as people are open to suggestion.

At all costs avoid sending first thing on a Monday. On Monday morning most inboxes are full to bursting. Your window of opportunity at this time is minimal and Mondays are definitely a no no. Changing which day you send your emails may improve your open and click rates.

Email Opens by Day of Month – B2B there are no clearly defined best times, however B2C email marketing is well timed for the end of the month (marketers such as the clothing industry and consumer goods tend to send emails at the end of the month in the knowledge that payday is imminent).

Open and Click Rates – More links lead to more clicks. Reducing the amount of content on your EDM and placing particular links in your content in several places will increase the number of clicks for that link.
Summary

In summary, we would recommend sending your email newsletter on Thursday. This is the day when all your subscribers start thinking about the weekend and are open to suggestions, so sending them a special offer on a holiday getaway is perfect. Sending your newsletter at 12 noon captures your B2B subscribers and your email will be there when your B2C subscribers arrive home.

In deciding whether your email recipients are B2B or B2C, please see this article When is the Best Time to Send Out Email Marketing Campaigns

Other resources When is the Best Time to Send Emails


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