You have just sent the perfect email campaign to your contacts. The email ticks off all the checkboxes - the right offer, a catchy subject line, intriguing content and an interactive design. Yet, you find out that the open rate is low. Wondering how you could have tackled this better? We have three words for you - Send Time Optimization.

Timing is everything when it comes to email marketing. While marketers make an effort to send out well-designed campaigns, guessing the ‘right send time’ can be the least optimal way to plan email campaigns.

In most cases, marketers go with blanket send times based on online or market recommendations. This general tip on send time may not always work; especially if your audience is across the globe. Generic send time results in poor open rates of the emails, which can be a pitfall for you. 

To navigate this pitfall and boost the open rates, you can leverage Send Time Optimization (STO) to send scheduled emails.

Send time optimization, best time to send emails Send time optimization, best time to send emails

What is Send Time Optimization?

Send Time Optimization (STO) identifies the right send time for email campaigns, thereby ensuring maximum open rates and in turn, email engagement. ‘Right send time’ here refers to the time at which your contact has higher chances of opening the email.

Why do you need STO? 

Email marketing today has become an important channel for marketers. According to Gartner, around 47 per cent of marketers feel email marketing is an effective tool for sales conversions. Sending well-timed emails as per a STO schedule can boost the success of your campaigns:

Improve open rates 

By predicting the right send time for customer engagement, STO improves your email open rate by 5 to 10%. More open rates equals greater success.

Stay on top of the inbox

Customers often subscribe to multiple mailing lists. The average customer receives at least 120 business emails per day. Having too many emails in a customer’s inbox can result in the customer losing sight of important emails amid all the clutter. Further, most email service providers redirect bulk emails to the promotions tab or spam folder. 

With STO, you can boost visibility in the inbox through personalized delivery time. Personalized delivery time refers to the time at which an email is sent to a contact based on their past engagement patterns. This helps to boost email open rates and ensure less chances of your email being redirected or junked by prospects.

Engage with prospects across time zones 

Businesses have contacts across multiple geo locations and cater to their various needs at different times of the day. So, marketers often proceed with generic time slots that are advised by the industry. This guess work may result in poor email open rates. 

Have contacts from across the globe on the same mailing list? No problem! With STO, you can engage with customers at their respective time zones – the hour most suitable time to your customers. Most customers are likely to appreciate engaging with businesses that accommodate and prioritize their time.

Now that you have learnt about STO, it is ‘time’ to get acquainted with Freshmarketer’s Freddy STO.

Meet Freddy STO 

Freshmarketer’s Freddy STO can help solve challenges on the right send time using the marketing automation tool. Using ML-driven models to predict the optimal send time for emails, Freddy STO increases the engagement rate. 

Freddy uses past user engagement data to enrich contact information. This data also involves contact data from the CRM, third parties and patterns based on:

  • Industry
  • Time zone 
  • Region, etc
Send time optimization, Freddy STO Send time optimization, Freddy STO

Besides contact enrichment, Freddy STO also determines the right send time for your prospects. The AI calculates an optimal time based on the prospects’ similarity with existing contacts and sends the timed emails accordingly. 

Freddy STO later revises the send time for future campaigns following the prospects’ engagement with the emails.

Freddy STO operates on two levels: 

  • When you want your emails to be delivered on a specific date

  • When your email schedule is flexible and delivery is over a specific time period

Let's take a deep dive into the two.

 

 

Optimize send time for a specific date

Specific date is a day decided by the business. It can be a fixed date, say June 10th, or a date that coincides with business holidays, special occasions and more (for example, May 1 or December 25). 

Freddy STO does the heavy lifting by sending the mails on the chosen date at a predetermined time. This way, your prospect will receive the email during a fixed window of the campaign. 

For example, Freddy can schedule your emails to be sent to your contacts at the best time on January 28 for a webinar on January 31. Using Freshmarketer’s email templates, you can personalize your emails to motivate your audience to participate in the webinar.

Send time optimization, timed emails, best time on particular date Send time optimization, timed emails, best time on particular date

 

 

Optimize send time for a time period

Flexible time period is a time frame within which the campaign is run. It can be a few days, a week or even a month based on the business’ requirements. 

For example, if you are planning a sales campaign for the summer holidays between June 15 and June 21, Freddy will schedule your emails to be sent to your contacts at the best time from June 11 to June 14. Your contact can receive the email informing them of the sales at any time during this period. 

Emails sent through a flexible STO schedule have the highest chance of being opened, factoring in the best day apart from the time.

send time optimization, best time across flexible period send time optimization, best time across flexible period

 

Besides choosing the right send time, Freddy can also give you a view of the campaign schedule and track metrics for you.

 

View schedule generated by Freddy STO

Freddy STO allocates the optimal time and date for each contact. The AI then generates a schedule which is available 24 hours ahead of the scheduled send time. 

For optimal send time on a specific date, Freddy STO shows the time slots for the day. For optimal send time across a flexible period such as a week, Freddy will show the day wise breakup.

illustration depicting how difficult it is to forecast value without marketing ROI illustration depicting how difficult it is to forecast value without marketing ROI

Track metrics

With Freshmarketer, you can generate reports to track metrics of the emails sent using STO under the metrics section. 

With Freddy, you can see the percentage of mails opened within the first four hours. The higher the number, the more the accuracy of Freddy’s prediction on the best time to send emails. 

Apart from this, you can also track important campaign metrics like:

Campaign schedule

The duration of your email campaign and response to it

Delivery rate

The percentage of mail that reached your prospect or subscriber’s inbox

Open rates

The percentage of your emails being opened

Email engagement

The number of subscribers who are interacting with your email campaign

Click rate

The number of prospects who are clicking on the links provided by you

Unsubscribe rate

The percentage of prospects or contacts in your mailing list who chose to unsubscribe

Bounce rate

The number of mails that were not delivered to your mailing list

Boost your email campaigns with Freddy STO today

Time is money and STO is the ‘need of the hour’ for businesses.

Optimize the send time for your emails, boost open rates and improve engagement with Freshmarketer’s Freddy STO.