Heavy Traffic Days
Research concludes that the early part of the week is the most active for surfing and sending e-newsletters.
Internet users are apparently energized after their weekends, as research finds that many surf the Web and conduct business in the early part of the week. OneStat.com reports that the most popular day to go online is Monday, while EmailLabs identified Tuesday as the most effective day for companies to distribute email newsletters.
| Worldwide Internet Traffic | |
|---|---|
| Monday | 15.31% |
| Tuesday | 15.23% |
| Thursday | 14.73% |
| Wednesday | 14.62% |
| Friday | 14.48% |
| Saturday | 13.08% |
| Sunday | 12.55% |
| Source: OneStat, April 2003 | |
Based on data from 525 client accounts, EmailLabs’ analysis of delivery trends found that for the second consecutive quarter, e-marketers are sending out newsletters on Tuesday – with more than one-quarter of messages being distributed that day – slightly edging out Wednesday in the popularity contest.
| E-Mail Distribution Days | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | |
| Q3 2003 | 1.4% | 15.1% | 25.4% | 23.3% | 18.3% | 15.6% | 0.9% |
| Q2 2003 | 1.5% | 14.1% | 26.7% | 23.7% | 22.4% | 10.6% | 1.0% |
| Q1 2003 | 1.8% | 14.1% | 22.4% | 23.2% | 22.8% | 15.2% | 0.5% |
| Source: EmailLabs | |||||||
Wednesday overtook Tuesday only slightly in Q1 and Loren T. McDonald, vice president of marketing for EmailLabs, commented on the shift: “Part of the increase on Tuesday could also just be the general trend and acknowledgement of email marketers that Tuesday is an optimum day to send – so kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Wednesday ruled as the most popular day for messages to be opened, as well as the day with the highest click-through rate.
The report also found that less than 3 percent of all legitimate marketing messages are sent on the weekend, mainly because many spammers use that time to fill inboxes. Even if the Can Spam act is effective in curtailing the vast amounts of unwanted messages, McDonald doesn’t believe it will lead legitimate e-marketers to begin extensive weekend distribution campaigns.
“I think what is likely/viable, is that as email marketers become more sophisticated – understand the preferences and habits of their subscribers and do more testing, when the results support – they will increasing send on the weekends or Mondays,” McDonald added.
Other key findings from the EmailLabs report include:
- In Q3, the combined average unsubscribe rate for HTML and text messages was 0.17 percent – a decline from .19 percent in Q2 and .29 percent in Q1 2003.
- Text messages were unsubscribed at a slightly higher rate than HTML in Q3 and Q2 at 0.22 percent, though nearly even with HTML messages in Q1 at .28 percent.
- 9 am (PT) was the most popular time to send messages
- 11 am (PT) was the most popular open time, and the highest click-through time
