Several business newsletters I've opted in for send their issue afterhours for the next day. For example, eMarketer Daily seems to always send around 4-5am. I'm sure they're thinking, hey we'll be the first thing in your email box when you come in in the morning. I'd urge all publishers who do this to rethink it because of the spam problem.

I leave work at each night having emptied my email in-box. When I get in the next morning, there's a whole bunch of mail. As in more than 100 messages. A tiny handful are from insomniac or Australian readers. The rest are spam, spam, spam, spam.

Then, nestled into the heart of dozens of messages urging me to improve my sex life or buy insurance, is eMarketer. Many's the time I've swept the "delete" button over the whole mess (after plucking forth the Aussies) and canned it.

I'm betting if late-night mailers changed their send time to say 9:30am when recipients get lots of mail from human beings (vs just mass mailers) they might increase their issue open rate. If anyone's tested this, lemme know. AHolland@MarketingSherpa.com

[BTW: Yeah I'm aware of the incongruence of this note as compared to the time I usually send out this Blog as an ezine to opt-ins on Friday evenings. Bad me.]

[Note: ContentBlog reader Henrik Torstensson of tradedoubler.com emailed in a response the the Blog above, "With regards to the timing of eMarketer Daily. I, living in Sweden, recieve the eMarketer Daily between 11 and 12 AM (CET). This is an excellent time as there aren't any/few other newsletters at this time (compared with afternoons and the flow of newsletters from 2 PM to 5.30 PM) and if things aren't completely messed up the few minutes it takes to read the newsletter are usually worth it. Time zones make timing of newsletters more difficult."]

Ok - that's it. English is the common language - let's make NYC the common time zone! Or would someplace in China take precedence? :-) http://www.tradedoubler.com http://www.emarketer.com (Pls. don't take it personally, ok?)