Introduction
When should you send cold outreach? The usual answer is: Tuesday to Thursday, in the morning, never at the weekend. We analysed 37,375 messages by weekday and arrived somewhere else.
The weekday
| Day | sent | replies | reply rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | 1,115 | 68 | 6.10 % |
| Tuesday | 7,276 | 370 | 5.09 % |
| Saturday | 1,636 | 78 | 4.77 % |
| Thursday | 6,394 | 290 | 4.54 % |
| Monday | 9,618 | 424 | 4.41 % |
| Wednesday | 6,799 | 292 | 4.29 % |
| Friday | 4,537 | 163 | 3.59 % |
The best day is Sunday. The worst is Friday. The two sit far enough apart that this is not noise: Sunday between 4.84 and 7.66 percent, Friday between 3.09 and 4.17 percent.
Now look at the "sent" column. On Sunday we send 1,115 messages, on Monday 9,618. So we send least on the day that works best.
Good sending plans differ from bad ones in whether they come from data or from habit.
Why Sunday works
Our reading: Sunday evening is when people clear the inbox. Little comes in, so a single message stands out. Monday morning everything arrives at once and your message is number 40.
Friday is the opposite. Anyone still reading on Friday wants to finish, not open a new front.
One caveat belongs here: we send far less at the weekend, and whoever gets contacted on a Sunday was not picked at random. Part of the lead probably comes from the selection rather than the day.
The second finding: the third contact is the weakest
| Step in the sequence | sent | replies | reply rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st message | 20,680 | 1,047 | 5.06 % |
| 2nd message | 10,407 | 423 | 4.06 % |
| 3rd message | 5,436 | 114 | 2.10 % |
| 4th message | 625 | 85 | 13.60 % |
From step 1 to step 3 the reply rate halves. That is the number that argues against the widespread advice to run eight to twelve touchpoints.
The jump at step 4 looks spectacular but is mostly a selection effect: only 625 leads get that far, and those are the ones somebody is actively working. We list the number because it is in the data. We would not build a strategy on it.
What we do with this
Three things that have become standard for us:
- We send across the whole week, weekend included, instead of dumping everything on Monday.
- We dial Friday down.
- We stop after the third contact unless a new signal appears. A fourth contact without a fresh trigger is burnt reputation.
Next steps
We are currently examining the time of day within each day. The raw data points at early morning hours, but our own sending rhythm interferes so heavily there that we do not want to publish the figure yet.
Goal
We want to pick the sending time per recipient, not per campaign. Happy selling, Axel