The holiday season is here, and for email marketers, that means one thing: it’s go-time. As inboxes become more crowded than ever, standing out with engaging, optimized emails is crucial. To help you make the most of this time of year, we’ve analyzed billions of email opens and found key insights on holiday email engagement.
Here’s what you need to know to elevate your holiday email marketing strategy.
How does email engagement change during the holiday season?
During the holidays, email timing and strategy are everything. With the right segmentation, email content, and thoughtful email marketing campaigns, you can drive higher customer engagement and create a seamless customer experience. Here’s how to make the most of the holiday season:
1. Shoppers increasingly make their purchases on mobile devices
During the holidays, mobile reigns supreme. From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, 44.2% of emails were opened on mobile devices, compared to 34.6% on webmail and 19.8% on desktop. The spike in mobile usage is even higher during key shopping periods, like Cyber Week, where over 50% of online sales come through mobile.
Source: Really Good Emails
Source: Really Good Emails
Source: Really Good Emails
Tip: Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly. This includes optimizing your email content and design for mobile devices to improve engagement rates and click-through rates (CTR). Need a refresher? Check out our holiday tips for triggered emails to make sure your automated campaigns, like abandoned cart emails, are ready to go.
2. Evening emails perform best
Timing is crucial for any email marketing campaign, and during the holidays, evenings can give you the edge. While the best time to send emails during the rest of the year is around 10 am, holiday data shows that 7pm sees the highest engagement rates, with 9.45% of email opens happening in the evening. This trend continues between Christmas and New Year’s, as subscribers tend to engage with emails more during the evenings.
Source: Really Good Emails
Source: Really Good Emails
Source: Really Good Emails
Tip: Test different send times, especially in the evening, to see what works best for your audience. A/B testing your holiday email campaigns can provide valuable insights into subscriber behavior. For more ideas, explore our fun holiday email campaign ideas to inspire your next send.
Holiday sends with total confidence
Preview emails in 100+ clients, catch errors, and ensure accessibility. Cut QA time in half. Thanks to Litmus.
3. Lunchtime is key on big shopping days
We did notice a few significant exceptions to 7pm being the most popular time to open emails during the holidays in the United States: Sundays, Christmas, and the biggest shopping days of the year. Instead of the most popular time of year falling in the evening, it was smack in the middle of the day.
For high-stakes shopping days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Green Monday, lunchtime (11am–1pm) is prime time for email opens. These midday windows provide shoppers the time they need to browse sales during their breaks, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates.
Source: Really Good Emails
Source: Really Good Emails
Source: Really Good Emails
Tip: Schedule your sale emails to hit inboxes around lunchtime for optimal visibility. Take a look at our insights on Green Monday emails to see how you can maximize engagement on this key holiday.
4. Personalization drives higher open rates and engagement
Email personalization plays a huge role in driving email engagement rates and conversions, especially during the holiday season. Brands like Airbnb and Sephora use personalized content to build trust and increase purchase rates. Incorporating dynamic content and personalized email subject lines can significantly boost your email open rate and click-through rates.
Hot tip: Personalization goes beyond names—consider your audience’s preferences, behaviors, and past interactions. Review our guide to email personalization for eCommerce to learn how to craft emails that resonate with both new subscribers and long-time customers.
Make every holiday email count
Deliver personalized holiday content at scale. Use live polls, dynamic content, and advanced targeting to drive results.
5. Keep an eye on key metrics to improve engagement
The holiday season is the time to closely track your email engagement rates. Keep a watchful eye on your email open, click-through, and bounce rates to make adjustments as campaigns roll out. Tracking these key metrics helps you refine your strategy, ensuring your holiday campaigns hit the mark.
Hot tip: Want to boost higher open rates? Experiment with your email subject lines and test different types of content. Need more ideas? Learn more about the key email engagement metrics that matter most during the holidays.
6. Optimize for deliverability to stay out of the spam folder
With inboxes overflowing, ensuring your emails reach your audience is critical. Optimizing for email deliverability is key to staying out of the spam folder and increasing your chances of engagement. Start by cleaning up your list to remove inactive email addresses, reduce your bounce rate, and follow best practices for your email marketing campaign.
Hot tip: If deliverability is a concern, check out our advice on how to avoid common deliverability pitfalls and optimize your email for inbox placement. For more advice, check out the complete holiday marketing guide.
Reach the inbox—not the spam folder
70% of emails show at least one spam-related issue that could keep them from the inbox. Don’t let your email be one of them.
There’s no one-size-fits-all holiday email strategy
While the insights we shared here can help serve as a baseline for your next holiday email marketing strategy, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Every audience is unique, so it’s important to analyze your own data to see how your email subscribers engage with your marketing efforts during the holiday season. Tools like Litmus Email Analytics can help you go beyond the open rate and dive deeper into metrics like read rate, giving you a better understanding of what works best for your audience.
The holiday season is a critical time for many companies, and it might be your last chance to hit or exceed your goals. With the right approach, your email marketing efforts can lead to high engagement and increased conversions without overwhelming your audience.
Take a look at our free email marketing templates to get started, or read through our complete holiday marketing guide if you’re scrambling at the last minute.
If you’re worried about staying on top of how many email campaigns you’re sending, don’t stress. Litmus is here to help you streamline your entire email design process, so you can spend less time managing emails and more time watching them soar.
Kayla Voigt is a B2B Freelance Writer.
