{"id":494,"date":"2010-05-08T12:21:04","date_gmt":"2010-05-08T11:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.free-web-submission.com\/blog\/?p=494"},"modified":"2010-05-08T12:21:04","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T11:21:04","slug":"email-newsletter-open-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/email-newsletter-open-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Email Newsletter Open Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Justin Premick of Aweber<\/a>
\n<\/small><\/p>\n

Think you know the best day and time to send your email newsletter<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Ever wonder if your fellow email marketers are all sending at the same time you do?<\/p>\n

Convinced your open rate is too low (or amazingly high)?<\/p>\n

Some recent statistics pulled from all AWeber users may help you answer these questions:<\/p>\n

What Kind of Open Rates Are People Getting?<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019re sending HTML emails, you probably use your open rate to help gauge your success.<\/p>\n

Even though it\u2019s not a perfect measure of whether people are actually opening and reading your emails, it\u2019s useful as a relative measure:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
If it goes up over a short period of time, more people are probably reading<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
If it falls over a short period of time, it\u2019s almost certain fewer people are reading.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Plus, all other things being equal, it can give you some motivation (if your open rates are lower than other senders\u2019) or satisfaction (if your rates are higher).<\/p>\n

So, here goes\u2026<\/p>\n

Average Open Rate Last Month: 13.6%<\/div>\n

When Is\/Was The Best Day To Send?<\/h2>\n

You\u2019ll often hear (at least, I<\/strong> often hear) that Tuesday is the optimal day to send, because on Monday people are catching up from the weekend, and that on Tuesday morning you\u2019ll have their undivided attention before they jump into their work for the upcoming week.<\/p>\n

Do the numbers back up that theory? Let\u2019s see.<\/p>\n

The breakdown of open rates by day of the week:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Monday<\/div>\n
13.67%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Tuesday<\/div>\n
13.21%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Wednesday<\/div>\n
14.07%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Thursday<\/div>\n
14.52%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Friday<\/div>\n
13.25%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Saturday<\/div>\n
12.09%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Sunday<\/div>\n
13.26%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Last month, Tuesday was actually the second-worst day to send<\/strong>, at least if you\u2019re measuring by open rates.<\/p>\n

(While we\u2019re breaking assumptions, I should point out this, too: the hour of the day that got the best open rate was not 8-9AM, or 9-10AM, but in fact 2-3PM Eastern Time \u2014 email newsletters sent during that hour last month enjoyed a 19.1% open rate.)<\/p>\n

Does This Mean I Should Switch My Campaigns To Thursdays?<\/h2>\n

In a word: No.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t break with your readers\u2019 expectations just to try to follow the latest day of the week stats. You might actually reduce your open rate by doing so.<\/div>\n

In both March and February, Thursday newsletters got the 3rd-worst opens vs. the rest of the week.<\/p>\n

I hesitated a little to publish these stats, because I\u2019m concerned that people might flock to sending their newsletters at the day or time that happened to get the best results lately.<\/p>\n

Please, don\u2019t drastically change your sending times\/days just because you see that the average last month, or any month, happened to be higher on a different day or time.<\/p>\n

Yes, you might eventually be able to shift your sending schedule, or split test some broadcasts, but if you up and move everything, you may throw off subscribers who are used to hearing from you at the usual time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s So Busy, Nobody Goes There Anymore\u201d<\/h2>\n

To get at the other reason for not shifting your sending based on these stats, let\u2019s paraphrase Yogi Berra (see above).<\/p>\n

If everyone switches their sending schedule to send on say, Thursday, then recipients will start getting a ton of email that day, and start paying less attention to each individual email.<\/p>\n

One possible reason for Thursday\u2019s success last month may be that it wasn\u2019t as popular as say, Tuesday or Wednesday for sending email:<\/p>\n

\n
Percentage of Newsletters Sent by Day<\/div>\n
\n
Monday<\/div>\n
16.0%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Tuesday<\/div>\n
17.7%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Wednesday<\/div>\n
16.9%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Thursday<\/div>\n
16.6%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Friday<\/div>\n
15.2%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Saturday<\/div>\n
8.8%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Sunday<\/div>\n
8.8%<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Those higher-volume days mean more emails in readers\u2019 inboxes, which might contribute to reduced open rates. Following that reasoning, some people may look at the low weekend volume (more email newsletters were sent on Tuesdays than on Saturdays and Sundays combined) and see an opportunity to get their audiences\u2019 undivided attention.<\/p>\n

My main point in showing these is to point out that our assumptions about what works are often quite wrong, and that you ultimately have to test for yourself to see what best suits your audience.<\/p>\n

Some Inspiration\u2026 And Some Help<\/h2>\n

Are you getting better open rates than this?<\/p>\n

If so, GREAT!<\/strong> Give yourself a pat on the back\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026but don\u2019t get complacent. Open rates aren\u2019t the be-all, end-all of email metrics. They don\u2019t guarantee that people are reading your emails, only that they have images turned on and that they probably saw your email for at least a moment.<\/p>\n

Plus, there\u2019s always room for improvement, right?<\/p>\n

Some ideas that can help you raise your open rates:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
Ask people to add you to their address books. Some email programs will display images from senders who are in the recipient\u2019s contact list.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
If you are putting pictures in your emails, use the ALT text<\/a> for those images to pique readers\u2019 interest in what the picture is, so that they enable images. Or, just directly ask readers to turn on images!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
Add a picture of yourself to your emails, near\/next to your signature. People like seeing your smiling face, and if they see it in one of your emails, they may be more likely to turn on images to see it again later.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

.<\/p>\n

=-> Learn how to setup your own email list, Increase your sales using these methods, to get started you need a Aweber<\/a> account.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Justin Premick of Aweber Think you know the best day and time to send your email newsletter? Ever wonder if your fellow email marketers are all sending at the same time you do? Convinced your open rate is too low (or amazingly high)? Some recent statistics pulled from all AWeber users may help … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,42],"tags":[45,34,989,21,995],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-email","category-list-building","tag-bulk-email","tag-free-traffic","tag-how-to","tag-internet-marketing","tag-list-building"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/free-web-submission.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}