Tried emailing at 6am instead of 10am for a month

I usually send our weekly product updates at 10am Tuesday, but last month I shifted to 6am Monday to see if it got more opens. Open rates dropped by 12% but our click through rate went up almost 20%. Anyone else seen weird splits like that with early morning sends?

2 comments

2 Comments

anthonyhunt12d ago

Honestly, I've seen the same thing happen with my own sends. I have a small newsletter for local contractors and moving to 5am got me way less opens but way more clicks from the people who did open. The drop in opens makes sense because half your list is still asleep or just waking up and not checking email yet. But the people who do open at that hour are probably already at their desk or getting started early, so they're actually ready to click through instead of just skimming. I've stuck with earlier times for my product launches because the click through rate matters more to me than open rate. Your numbers actually look solid if you ask me, those early birds seem to convert better even if there's fewer of them.

wadeyoung12d ago

Yeah, that part about "ready to click through instead of just skimming" really hit home for me... I've noticed the same pattern with the folks who open my stuff early. They're the ones who actually read through the whole thing instead of just scrolling past and forgetting about it. It's like the early crowd is just more engaged in general...