It’s Kate from Selzy here. Ever sent an email at 9 AM only to watch your opens trickle in around 8 PM? Yeah, me too.

You spend hours on the perfect subject line, the clever copy and the beautiful design, but if it lands at the wrong moment (while people are rushing to a meeting, cooking dinner or simply sleeping) it might as well have never been sent.

Timing isn’t everything, but it means a lot. So let’s talk about how to stop guessing and start knowing when your subscribers are actually ready to listen.

Step 1: Let your own data guide you

You don’t need to rely on generic “best time to send” charts (although we have an article on the subject!). Your audience has already told you when they open, you just need to know where to look.

In Selzy, open any past campaign report. Go to the Recipient behaviour tab. There you’ll find a chart showing opens and clicks over a day, a week, 14 days or a month. The “over a day” view is your goldmine: it shows exactly when your subscribers are most active.

That pattern might surprise you. Maybe your B2B crowd opens at 7 AM on their phones. Maybe your retail audience checks emails late in the evening. Run this report for your top-performing campaigns and you’ll see a pattern emerge.

Step 2: A/B test your way to certainty

Data from past campaigns is a great starting point, but A/B testing lets you prove your hunch.

Here’s a test: send version A to a small group at 10 AM, version B to another group at 6 PM. See which one wins on opens and clicks and then send the winner to the rest of your list.

In Selzy, you can test different send times, not just subject lines or designs. Start with a test duration of at least 3-6 hours to get reliable results.

Repeat this every few months. Your subscribers’ habits change, and so should your send times.

Step 3: Think about time zones

If your audience is based in multiple time zones, a single send time will inevitably hit someone at 3 AM.

Selzy lets you segment contacts by location data stored in their profiles, such as a city or region. In campaign reports, the geographical map shows opens and clicks by country or city, based on IP data, so you can see where engagement is coming from. Use this insight to create regional segments and schedule separate campaigns for times that are reasonable for each audience’s time zone.

Alternatively, use the Delay block in Selzy’s automation builder to pause a scenario until a specific date, weekday or time. Keep in mind that the block uses the time zone of the device you’re working on, so cross-border sequences may require separate timing for different regions.

The exception: Triggered emails

There's one rule I want to emphasize: transactional and welcome emails should be sent immediately, regardless of the time. A password reset at 2 AM? They need it now.