Is there a best time or day to send sales and marketing emails? 2026 guide

Ask five marketers for the best time to send an email, and you’ll likely get five different answers. Tuesday mornings. Thursday afternoons. Just before lunch. Definitely not Friday.

Google search data shows people are still hungry for this kind of insight, with approximately 105,000 searches per month for terms relating to the best time or day/when to send emails (Semrush data). 

But here’s the truth: chasing the perfect time to hit send is a flawed approach.

Marketing emails and sales outreach emails serve very different purposes. They’re sent using different platforms, measured in different ways, and judged by completely different outcomes. Treating them as one and the same is where most timing advice falls apart.

Here, we explore:

• When send times can matter for marketing emails, and what the wider data suggests
• Why sales outreach success in 2026 has far more to do with relevance and strategy than timing hacks
• How to think about email timing properly, without damaging engagement or deliverability

Because the truth is this: chasing a single ‘best time’ is rarely the thing that moves the needle.

Looking for expert support? Our email marketing services can help you go far beyond timing tweaks – with highly personalised, fully managed B2B campaigns that get results

Marketing emails vs sales outreach: why timing advice gets muddled

Before we talk about send times, it’s important to separate two types of email that are often lumped together, but shouldn’t be.

Marketing emails

Marketing emails are typically:

• Newsletters
• Promotional campaigns
• Product updates
• Lifecycle or nurture emails

They’re usually sent through marketing automation platforms or ESPs to large segments of an opted-in audience. Their goal isn’t to start a one-to-one conversation; it’s to drive engagement at scale.

Success is measured by:

• Click-through rates
• Conversions
• Revenue attribution
• Engagement trends over time

Because marketing emails are broadcast-led, general behavioural patterns, such as when people tend to browse, click or buy, can be useful inputs.

Sales outreach emails

Sales outreach emails are different.

They’re used for:

• Prospecting
• Opening conversations
• Building relationships
• Booking meetings and creating pipeline

They’re typically sent via sales engagement tools, in carefully sequenced campaigns, often alongside LinkedIn touches, calls and other channels.

The goal isn’t a click, it’s a positive response.

Success is measured by:

• Replies
• Quality of engagement
• Meetings booked
• Pipeline generate

Because sales outreach is highly targeted and conversational, the factors that drive success are far more nuanced. Timing plays a role,  but it’s rarely the deciding one.

This distinction matters because the advice that works for marketing emails doesn’t automatically apply to sales outreach. And conflating the two leads to misleading conclusions about ‘best’ send times.

With that context in place, let’s look at each in turn.

Is there a best time to send marketing emails?

When people ask about the ‘best time’ to send emails, they’re usually talking about marketing emails. Newsletters, product updates, promotional campaigns, nurture emails. Messages sent to an opted-in audience, at scale.

And in this context, timing can matter, at least as a starting point.

Because marketing emails are broadcast-led, there are broad behavioural patterns in how people consume them. That’s why you’ll often see studies claiming certain days or times perform better than others.

The important thing to remember is this: benchmarks describe averages, not guarantees. They can guide your thinking, but they shouldn’t dictate your strategy.

Why benchmarks only get you so far

The moment you move beyond averages, generic timing advice starts to unravel.

Your audience is not a monolith. Even within a single mailing list, you may be emailing:

• Senior decision-makers with packed calendars
• Individual contributors who skim emails between meetings
• Mobile-first users checking emails on the move
• Desktop users who engage during focused work blocks

Layer in time zones, flexible working patterns and industry-specific routines, and the idea of a universally ‘best’ send time quickly breaks down.

There’s also a competitive reality to consider. When everyone follows the same advice and schedules campaigns for the same popular slots, inboxes become crowded. Standing out becomes harder, not easier.

In other words, benchmarks can tell you where to start, but they can’t tell you what will work best for your audience.

How to optimise send times for marketing emails

Rather than chasing the perfect day or hour, effective marketing teams use timing as one variable within a broader optimisation strategy.

A few principles matter more than the exact moment you hit send.

1. Use your own performance data first

Your email platform already holds valuable insight. Look at when your campaigns historically generate the strongest click-through rates and conversions, not just opens. Patterns in your own data will always be more relevant than external studies.

2. Segment wherever possible

Different segments behave differently. A customer list may engage at different times to a prospect list. One industry may respond better in the morning, another later in the day. 

Segmenting allows you to adapt timing to behaviour, rather than forcing one schedule onto everyone.

→ Get into the weeds to identify, target and reach the right people with our guide to B2B market segmentation. 

3. Optimise for action, not attention

An email being opened doesn’t mean it was effective. For marketing emails, success is about what happens next. Clicks, sign-ups, purchases, downloads. Use timing to support those outcomes, not vanity metrics.

4. Test carefully and consistently

A/B testing send times can be useful, but only when done properly. Test one variable at a time, give tests enough volume and duration, and be cautious about drawing conclusions from short-term results or seasonal spikes.

The goal isn’t to find a magic hour. It’s to build confidence that your emails arrive when your audience is most likely to act.

→ Get everything you need to know about A/B split testing emails in our guide. 

Is there a best time to send sales outreach emails?

If marketing emails benefit from broad behavioural patterns, sales outreach operates in a very different reality.

Outbound sales emails are not designed to be consumed passively. They’re intended to start a conversation, build relevance and earn a response from a specific individual. That difference alone changes how much weight timing should carry.

So, is there a best time to send sales outreach emails?

The short answer is no. And in many cases, chasing one can actively undermine performance.

Why ‘best time’ thinking breaks down in outbound

Sales outreach success in 2026 is shaped far more by who you contact and what you say than when you say it.

A highly relevant message sent at a supposedly ‘bad’ time will almost always outperform a generic message sent at the perfect hour. That’s because outbound performance is driven by factors like:

• The accuracy of your ideal customer profile (ICP)
• How well the message reflects the recipient’s role and challenges
• Whether there is genuine commercial relevance
• The sequencing and follow-up strategy
• Use of multiple channels, not just email
• Signals of intent, timing and readiness to buy

In this context, send time is a supporting variable, not the lever that creates results.

That’s an important distinction, because many articles promise sales teams easy wins through timing tweaks alone. In reality, this kind of thinking leads to shallow optimisation and disappointing outcomes.

Why open rates don’t tell you much about sales performance

One of the biggest mistakes in outbound sales reporting is over-reliance on open rates.

In modern inboxes, open rates are increasingly unreliable. Bot activity, privacy protections and email clients that pre-load content mean many ‘opens’ never reflect human engagement at all. It’s because of these reasons that Sopro doesn’t optimise outbound campaigns around open rate.

And, importantly, an open is not the outcome sales teams care about. In sales outreach, success is measured by:

• Positive responses
• Meaningful conversations
• Meetings booked
• Pipeline created

An email that is opened and ignored delivers no value. An email that earns a thoughtful reply, even if it is opened hours later, does.

What actually drives outbound success in 2026?

If timing is not the primary driver, what is?

High-performing outbound programmes focus on:

• Segmentation and ICP accuracy, so messages land with people who actually have a reason to care
• Personalised messaging, rooted in role, industry and commercial context
• Sequencing, using multiple touchpoints over time rather than relying on a single email
• Channel orchestration, combining email with LinkedIn, calls and other channels
• Intent signals, so outreach aligns with real buying behaviour rather than arbitrary schedules

When these elements are in place, timing becomes a refinement tool, not a crutch. It helps improve performance at the margins, rather than being asked to carry the whole strategy.

→ For more tips on driving outbound success, check out our email personalisation examples, strategies and expert advice. 

Measuring success properly: marketing emails vs sales outreach

One of the reasons timing advice often feels confusing is that email success is measured differently depending on the message’s goal.

Marketing emails and sales outreach serve different purposes. It follows that they should be evaluated using different metrics. When those lines blur, teams end up optimising for the wrong outcomes.

Let’s be clear about what success looks like in each case.

How success is measured for marketing emails

Marketing emails are built to drive engagement and action at scale. Their purpose is to move people along a journey, whether that’s learning more about a product, registering for an event or making a purchase.

For that reason, meaningful marketing email metrics include:

• Click-through rate, which shows whether the message and CTA resonated
• Conversion rate, such as sign-ups, downloads or purchases
• Revenue attribution, where applicable
• Engagement trends over time, rather than single-campaign spikes

Open rates are sometimes reported, but they offer limited insight on their own. An open without a click or conversion doesn’t indicate success, and privacy features make opens increasingly unreliable as a standalone measure.

For marketing teams, the goal is not simply to be seen, it’s to prompt action.

How success is measured for sales outreach

Sales outreach has a different objective. It’s about starting relevant conversations with the right people, not broadcasting messages as widely as possible.

That’s why sales outreach success should be measured through:

• Positive response rate, not total replies
• Quality of engagement, including questions, objections and interest
• Meetings booked
• Pipeline generated

An email that receives a considered response, even if it arrives days later, is far more valuable than one that was opened instantly and ignored.

This is also why open rates are a poor signal of outbound performance. They don’t tell you whether the message resonated, whether the prospect is interested, or whether a commercial conversation has begun.

Why aligning metrics with intent matters

When teams use marketing-style metrics to judge sales outreach, or vice versa, behaviour becomes distorted.

Sales teams start chasing opens instead of conversations. Marketing teams optimise for visibility rather than impact. In both cases, timing can appear more important than it really is, because it’s being measured against the wrong yardstick.

By aligning metrics with intent, timing naturally falls into the right place. It becomes a factor to test and refine, not a headline goal in its own right.

With measurement clarified, the final piece is understanding how to build a timing strategy that reflects modern email behaviour, without falling back into the trap of chasing ‘best’ times.

How to approach email timing strategically in 2026

Once you separate marketing emails from sales outreach and align success metrics properly, email timing becomes much easier to think about.

The mistake most teams make is looking for a universal rule. The reality is that effective timing strategies are built around context, behaviour and intent, not fixed schedules.

Here’s how to approach timing in a way that actually supports performance in 2026.

Start with audience behaviour, not the clock

The most reliable signal for when to send emails is how your audience already behaves.

For marketing teams, this means analysing when different segments click and convert, not just when campaigns are sent. For sales teams, it means understanding when prospects are most receptive to starting conversations, often influenced by role, seniority and workload patterns.

Rather than asking ‘what time should we send?’, a better question is:

‘When is this audience most likely to engage meaningfully with this message?’

Your own data, CRM insights and campaign history will always be more valuable than generic benchmarks.

Segment before you optimise

Timing works best when it’s applied to smaller, more relevant groups.

Instead of sending one message to everyone at once:

• Segment marketing lists by behaviour, lifecycle stage or interests
• Segment sales outreach by role, industry, company size or intent signals

This allows timing to support relevance, rather than compensate for its absence.

It also reduces inbox spikes and helps protect deliverability, particularly for outbound campaigns.

Treat timing differently for marketing and sales

For marketing emails, timing is about efficiency at scale. The goal is to maximise the likelihood that a message lands during a moment when recipients are open to clicking, reading or converting.

For sales outreach, timing is about supporting a conversation, not forcing one. That means:

• Spreading touches over time
• Using follow-ups thoughtfully
• Avoiding mass sends that feel automated or intrusive

A well-sequenced message sent later in the day can outperform a poorly targeted one sent at a ‘better’ time.

Test, but don’t chase short-term wins

Testing send times can be valuable, but only when it’s done carefully.

Good testing means:

• Changing one variable at a time
• Running tests over enough volume and duration
• Accounting for external factors like seasonality or industry events

Avoid drawing sweeping conclusions from a single campaign or short-term uplift. Timing effects are often subtle, and overreacting to them can create more noise than progress.

Use automation wisely

Modern email platforms make it easier to align timing with behaviour.

Marketing teams can use tools that optimise send times based on past engagement. Sales teams can build sequences that adapt based on responses, inactivity or intent signals.

Automation works best when it supports relevance. When it’s used to simply increase volume or replicate mass sends, it can quickly backfire.

Focus on consistency, not perfection

There is no perfect send time. Inbox behaviour changes, working patterns evolve, and audiences shift.

What matters more is consistency. Sending relevant emails to the right people, with a clear purpose, at sensible times, will always outperform erratic campaigns built around timing theories.

When timing is treated as part of a broader strategy, rather than the strategy itself, results tend to follow.

Common email timing mistakes, and what to do instead

Poor timing doesn’t just limit performance. In some cases, it can actively damage engagement, deliverability and brand perception.

Most of these issues don’t come from sending at the ‘wrong’ hour. They come from relying on timing as a shortcut, rather than treating it as one part of a broader strategy.

Here are the most common mistakes teams make, along with tips on how to avoid them.

1. Sending everything at once

One of the fastest ways to undermine performance is sending large volumes of emails at the same time.

For marketing emails, this can lead to inbox congestion and reduced visibility. For sales outreach, it raises red flags with email providers and increases the risk of being filtered as spam.

What to do instead

Stagger sends where possible. Use rolling schedules for marketing campaigns and spread sales outreach touches across time. This improves deliverability and reduces inbox fatigue.

→ Sending a single message to a huge list and hoping something sticks doesn’t cut the mustard any more. Discover the pros, cons, and alternatives to mass email for more. 

2. Optimising for opens rather than outcomes

Chasing open rates often leads teams to send emails at times that look good on a dashboard, but don’t generate real results.

An email that is opened and ignored doesn’t move a campaign forward. An email that earns a response or a conversion does.

What to do instead

Define success clearly before you send. For marketing emails, optimise for clicks and conversions. For sales outreach, optimise for positive responses and meaningful conversations.

3. Treating timing as a replacement for relevance

Timing tweaks are often used to compensate for weak targeting or generic messaging.

In outbound, especially, this creates a cycle of superficial optimisation, where teams change send times instead of fixing the real issues in their campaigns.

What to do instead

Invest in segmentation, personalisation and sequencing first. Once relevance is in place, timing can help refine performance rather than trying to rescue it.

→ One way to maximise relevancy is by understanding how to create an ideal customer profile (ICP and buyer personas, and the differences between the two.

4. Copying ‘best time’ advice without context

Generic advice spreads quickly because it feels simple. However, copying another company’s send schedule overlooks audience differences, industry dynamics, and campaign goals.

What works for a consumer newsletter won’t necessarily work for a B2B prospecting email.

What to do instead

Use benchmarks as references, not rules. Prioritise insights from your own data and adapt timing based on audience behaviour, not internet consensus.

5. Over-testing and constant change

Testing is important, but excessive testing can be just as harmful as none at all.

Constantly changing send times based on small or short-term fluctuations makes it difficult to spot meaningful patterns and creates inconsistent experiences for recipients.

What to do instead

Test deliberately and review results over time. Make changes when patterns are clear and repeatable, not in response to isolated wins or losses.

Avoiding these mistakes helps ensure timing supports your email strategy, rather than distracting from it.

Send emails that make an impact in inboxes

Over the past decade, we’ve sent millions of emails to individuals in just about every sector and location.

So if you’re looking for an email marketing agency that has the expertise to drill down into the data and separate what works from what doesn’t, you need Sopro.
See how we build B2B email campaigns that land, engage, and convert. Book a demo now.