Timing and Delays with Drift Email Bots

Guidelines for email bot sending

• We do not send emails on weekends or US holidays
• However, we do count weekends and holidays as part of your delays between emails
• You can customize the delay (number of days) between each email in your sequence.
• For example, Email 1 goes out on Thursday. There is a 3-day delay between Email 1 and Email 2. Email 2 will be sent on Monday (because 3 days after Email 1 would land on a Sunday, so we wait an extra day).
• All campaign emails that are sent automatically (i.e. all but the first email when a campaign is first enabled) are sent based on the recipient's timezone and the most likely windows for email opens
• List syncs from Marketo/Pardot/HubSpot happen at Midnight UTC. Any recipient that enters the audience list of an enabled campaign won't receive the first email until the first business day after the first sync that occurs while they're on the list

Holidays excluded from sending

• January 1st (New Years’ Day)
• Third Monday in January (Martin Luther King Day)
• Third Monday in February (Washington’s Birthday)
• Last Monday in May (Memorial Day)
• July 4th (Independence Day)
• First Monday in September (Labor Day)
• Second Monday in October (Indigenous Peoples Day)
• November 11th (Veterans Day)
• Fourth Thursday in November (Thanksgiving)
• December 25th (Christmas)

Send Times

Using our own data, Drift has defined four windows of times during which recipients are most likely to open emails. These windows are 5:30am-6:30am, 9:30am-10:30am, 1:30pm-2:30pm, and 8:00pm-11:00pm. We will randomly select one of these windows for all campaign emails that we send automatically. They will be sent according to the recipient's timezone if it is known, otherwise we will use the timezone you've set for your Drift Chat account.

Example Scenarios

What if I try to start a new campaign on a weekend or holiday?

If you turn on a new campaign on a weekend or holiday, then we’ll send the first email on the next business day.

How do you check if there are weekends or holidays during a campaign?

When we send the first email, the second email is immediately queued to send after its specified delay.. For example, if Email 1 is sent Monday, August 10 (and there’s a 2-day delay), Email 2 is immediately scheduled for Wednesday, August 13. When scheduling the next email, we check if the planned send day is a holiday or weekend. In this scenario, since Wednesday is a business day and August 13 is not a holiday, we will send it on that day as planned.

What if I make changes to my campaign while it’s live?

Changes to live campaigns will not take effect for anyone who is already scheduled (in the delay period) waiting to receive the email you’re editing.

Let’s use the example from above and say Email 1 goes out on Monday, with a 2-day delay (so Email 2 goes out on Wednesday). Now let’s say you make changes to the copy in Email 2 on Tuesday (while everyone is waiting in the 2-day delay). The people enrolled in the sequence already will NOT get the new version of your copy.

However, if you send Email 1 on Monday, and then make changes to Email 3 (where no one has reached that step) - your contacts will get the new version of your email.

What if I change my email delay times while my campaign is live?

Same rule as above - changes to delays will not take effect for any contacts who are already in that delay.

Using the example above: Email 1 goes out Monday; Email 2 is on a 2-day delay for Wednesday. If you change the delay on Tuesday, everyone who is already in your sequence will still get the email on Wednesday, on the old delay.

However, if you send Email 1 and then update the delay between Email 2 and 3 (which no one has reached yet) - this change will take effect for the contacts already in the sequence.

What if I delete an email from a live campaign?

We do not recommend deleting emails from live campaigns.

If you delete an email out of a live campaign, contacts already in the campaign will not receive the deleted email, nor will they receive any emails that come after the deleted email. For example, let’s say you delete Email 2 out of a sequence that is 4 emails long. Once Email 2 is deleted, anyone who was scheduled to receive Email 2 will not receive Email 3 or Email 4 and essentially have finished the sequence.

What if someone enters my audience list on a Friday afternoon?

If a recipient is new to a synced list on a Friday, they won't be synced to your Drift account until midnight UTC. They therefore won't receive their first email until a smart window on Monday (assuming the first email has no delay set.)