It's 9:00 pm. Do you know where your email campaign is?

So first things first: When it comes to launching your email campaign, there is no Magic Hour. That “delete” button works just as well at 3 pm on a Wednesday as it does at 3 am on a Friday. However, are there days when people are more likely to read your email? Or even more likely to click though?

Remember Rebecca Black, the young singer made famous for her YouTube song about the joys of it being Friday? Eloqua was inspired by Rebecca Black and decided to crunch some numbers to see how Friday response rates were. Not too hot, as they found. In fact, their results indicated that Wednesday though Friday in general didn’t have good response rates.

Another leading email application service provider, Vertical Response, suggests that it’s not as simple as just one time of day or one day of the week. If you’ve sent out campaigns in the past, and you’ve staggered your days (as well as times of day), check to see what kind of response rates and click through rates you’ve gotten on different days and at different times.

Another interesting point that these experts call out is that there may not be a single good time for everyone. It really depends on who is on your mailing list. Maybe late morning on a Tuesday is practically industry standard, but not if your mailing list is made of up people who work the night shift! Considering your audience is very important. Is your target located in in multiple time zones? If so, you can try grouping lists by time zone and sending out emails at different times. This way, your potential customers in Detroit can get your email at the same time of day as your potential customers in Brisbane. Get to know those whom you want to reach, along with their habits. When is your Twitter list most active? Maybe that’s a good time to send – if they’re on Twitter, it might mean they’re not deeply involved in a project at the moment and could be more likely to leisurely check their email.

Consider the content of your email as well. Are you promoting an upcoming event that involves food? What better time to send it out than just before lunchtime, when your readers’ stomachs might be very interested in your appetizing email? Or, if your event involves a happy hour, try sending out your email in the middle of the afternoon on Friday!

Ultimately, what’s important is that you keep doing email campaigns, regardless of if you’ve pinpointed an ideal time to launch. You may be cranky your open rate is only 8%, but it sure beats an open rate of 0%! Trial and error is also a great teacher and, as long as you keep pushing those emails out, checking the stats, and learning from the resulting data, you’re sure to find your email sweet spot eventually.