Emails sent on Friday had the highest average open rate in 2005, according to ExactTarget's 2005 Response Rate Study which includes data collected from more than 4,000 organizations, 230,000 email sends and 2.7 billion email messages.
According to the study, Friday had the highest average open rate for 14 months straight - from October 2004 through November 2005.
Sunday had the year's highest average click-through rate, or number of times someone clicked on a link in the email, followed by Friday. However, Sunday was a consistently low performer for open rates.
Email send activity is still focused mid-week, with approximately 96 percent of campaigns and 92 percent of email volume sent Monday through Friday.
InternetRetailer.com reports that open rates by day of the week were:
Sunday, 33.5%
Monday, 37.9%
Tuesday, 38.4%
Wednesday, 38.4%
Thursday, 39%
Friday, 39.6%
Saturday, 31.5%
Fridays may have led on open rates, but Sundays had the highest click-through rate at 6.9%.
Click-through rates by day of the week were:
Sunday, 6.9%
Monday, 6.4%
Tuesday, 6.3%
Wednesday, 6.1%
Thursday, 6.4%
Friday, 6.5%
Saturday, 6.1%
