When you schedule a text message campaign, consider the following best practices for message send times.
Send your campaign in the afternoon or evening
Marketing message click-through rates (CTRs) tend to be relatively constant throughout the day, peaking slightly in the afternoon (1 - 5 PM EST) and at night (after 6 PM EST).
Schedule campaigns for subscribers' local time zones
We recommend scheduling messages to be sent in subscribers’ local time if you want subscribers to receive a message at the same time in their respective time zones. You can also choose what happens to messages where the send time has already passed in the subscriber’s time zone.
Consider the goal of the campaign when you schedule it
Depending on whether you're looking to drive more revenue or higher CTRs, weekends or weekdays may perform higher. We’ve found that:
- Marketing messages sent over the weekend drive higher CTRs than those sent on weekdays.
- Weekdays see higher revenue per message than weekends.
Test your campaigns to understand your audience
Each audience is unique, so we recommend sending A/B test campaigns to discover what content and send times lead to higher engagement.
Keep quiet hours in mind
Quiet hours restrict when certain triggered messages are sent to subscribers. Based on legal regulations, consumer preferences, and to account for the possibility of a user traveling, our default and recommended quiet hours are 8 PM - 12 PM (local time of the recipient). We recommend sending campaign messages from 12 PM - 8 PM ET. That said, it is ultimately up to you and your counsel to determine your quiet hours settings and campaign send times.