The Best Time to Send Brand Pitch Emails (Backed by Data)

A brilliant pitch sent at the wrong time is still a pitch that gets ignored. Timing is everything when it comes to sending brand pitch emails.

It is incredibly frustrating to do everything right, only to be ignored because of bad timing.

Don't panic. Timing your emails isn't magic; it's a science. Marketing managers have predictable routines, and once you understand them, you can slide right to the top of their inbox.

We've researched so you don't have to.

This guide breaks down exactly when to send brand pitch emails backed by real data and real creator experiences.

The Best Day of the Week to Send Brand Pitch Emails

Think about a standard corporate workweek.

On Monday mornings, a marketing manager's inbox is a warzone of internal requests, weekend fires, and catching up.

Pitching on a Monday is one of the most common brand deal outreach mistakes creators make. Your email will be swiped away without a second thought.

A review of nine independent research studies on email timing found that 55% of them identified Tuesday as the single best day to send outreach emails, with Wednesday and Thursday splitting much of the rest.

HubSpot's 2025 analysis found that Tuesday generates 16% higher open rates than other weekdays, while Omnisend's Email Marketing Benchmarks show Thursday delivering strong 25–26% open rates.

Why do these days dominate?

• Tuesday hits the sweet spot: people have cleared Monday's backlog and are fully in execution mode. They have mental bandwidth for something new.

• Wednesday is solid but slightly lower engagement as the week's workload builds.

• Thursday is excellent, people are still active and productive before the weekend mentally creeps in.

• Friday is generally a graveyard for cold outreach. Most professionals are wrapping up the week, heading into the weekend mindset, or catching up on tasks they've been delaying. Even if your email gets opened, it's unlikely to receive a considered reply.

• Weekends are effectively non-starters for brand partnership pitches. Marketing teams are not making brand deal decisions on Saturday.

The sweet spot? Tuesday through Thursday. According to email marketing data from CoSchedule, Tuesday consistently ranks as the number one day for email open rates, with Wednesday and Thursday following closely behind. Mid-week is when managers are actively looking for new solutions and creative assets.

Sound good? Let's narrow it down to the hour.

The Best Time of Day to Send Brand Pitch Emails

You know the day, but sending an email at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday is still a gamble. You want to land in their inbox right when they have their morning coffee.

Let's look at what the data says.

Multiple large-scale studies converge on one finding: emails sent early in the morning dramatically outperform those sent later in the day.

Siege Media's outreach team analysed 85,000+ personalised emails and found that the optimal send window for replies was between 6 AM and 9 AM (recipient's local time).

When an email arrives before the workday fully kicks off, it lands near the top of the inbox right when the recipient opens their laptop with fresh energy and maximum attention.

Lemlist's 2024 analysis reinforced this: cold emails sent between 5 AM and 8 AM had roughly 25% higher reply rates compared to emails sent later in the day.

The logic is intuitive. Think about how you check email. First thing in the morning, you're scanning your inbox with intention, deciding what needs a response. By 2 PM, you're deep in tasks and barely glancing at new arrivals. By 4 PM, decision fatigue has set in.

Harvard Business Review's research on decision fatigue confirms that response likelihood declines as the day progresses, because the mental resources required for continuous task-switching deplete over time.

What This Means for You as a Creator

If your target brand is based in New York, schedule your send for 7–8 AM EST. If they're in London, that's 7–8 AM GMT.

To make this seamless, don't wake up at 5:00 AM to press send. Write your pitches in batches and use scheduling software.

Check out our list of the best apps for content creators to find the perfect tools to automate your email timing.

Most email clients (Gmail, Outlook) have a "Schedule Send" feature. Use it. Do not simply fire off emails whenever you finish writing them.

Pro tip: Schedule delivery for 7:00–7:30 AM in the recipient's time zone so your email sits prominently in their inbox when they arrive at their desk (or open their phone) for the first day.

The Best Week of the Month to Pitch

This is underrated information that almost no creator talks about.

Brand managers have monthly rhythms too.

The first week of the month typically involves internal planning meetings, budget reviews, and campaign kickoffs. That means inboxes are busier with internal communications, and new external pitches can easily fall through the cracks.

The second and third weeks of the month tend to be the sweet spot.

The month's planning is done, campaigns are in motion, and managers have more mental space to review inbound pitches. They're also thinking ahead to what comes next, which means they're more receptive to a well-timed creator pitch.

The final week of the month is hit or miss. Some teams are rushing to meet monthly deliverables; others are wrapping up smoothly. It's not a bad time to pitch, but it's not the prime window either.

Schedule your major pitching pushes for the second and third weeks of the month, on a Tuesday or Thursday, sent at 7 AM the recipient's time.

The Best Months and Seasons to Send Brand Pitch Emails

This is where most creators leave serious money on the table. Timing within the week matters, but timing within the year matters even more because it aligns with how brands actually allocate budgets and plan campaigns.

Understanding Brand Budget Cycles

Brands don't decide to spend money on creators spontaneously. They plan. And that planning follows quarterly cycles.

Most brands follow these cycles: Q1 (January–March) covers New Year's resolutions, spring launches, and budget allocation; Q2 (April–June) covers summer campaign prep and mid-year pushes; Q3 (July–September) covers back-to-school and the start of holiday campaign planning; Q4 (October–December) covers holiday campaigns and year-end activations.

Your goal is to pitch 6–8 weeks before the campaign you want to be part of. If you want a Black Friday collaboration, don't pitch in October. Pitch in August or September, when brands are still building their holiday creator roster.

If you are only starting to prepare for brand deals at the start of Q4, you're a little bit behind.

Marketing budgets are usually planned out well before each quarter, especially if you're planning to pitch large brands or corporations.

The Best Months to Pitch, Quarter by Quarter

January–February (Q1 Goldmine)

Counter-intuitively, early January is one of the best times to pitch brands — especially if you're targeting smaller and mid-size brands.

After the holiday rush, many brands pause campaigns in January and February. This creates a buyer's market for influencer partnerships. Creators typically see a slowdown in paid partnerships after Q4, which means brands are more open to new relationships.

Brands are also entering the year with fresh budgets and a clean slate. They're evaluating new partnerships and building out their creator rosters for the year ahead. A crisp, well-timed pitch in the first two weeks of January can land you a partnership that pays throughout the entire year.

March–April (Spring Campaign Push)

This is when brands are executing Q1 and planning Q2. Spring product launches, Mother's Day campaigns, and warm-weather activations are all in the pipeline. If your niche aligns with any of these (beauty, lifestyle, food, fashion, travel) March is a prime pitching window.

August–September (Holiday Campaign Planning Begins)

Most marketers run their biggest influencer campaigns in November, December, October, and September, in that order. Q4 is a common busy period in influencer promotion thanks to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and other end-of-year holidays.

But here's the thing: the creators who land those Q4 deals aren't the ones pitching in October. They're the ones who pitched in August. By the time October rolls around, campaign creator slots are often filled.

If you want to be part of a brand's holiday campaign, get your pitch in during August or early September when they're actively building their lists.

What to Avoid: Late December

The final two weeks of December are essentially a dead zone for pitch emails. Most marketing teams are on holiday, winding down for the year, or in internal end-of-year reviews.

Emails sent during this period are rarely acted upon, and even if opened, they get buried under the January flood. If you're pitching in December, aim to hit inboxes before December 15th.

Here's a stat that should change how you think about email pitching: 58% of replies come from the first email, but 2–3 follow-ups can increase total responses by nearly 50%.

The majority of brand deals that come from cold pitching don't come from the first email. They come from the follow-up. Most creators either never follow up (a huge missed opportunity) or follow up too aggressively (which damages your reputation).

The Follow-Up Timing Framework

Follow-up #1: Send 5–7 days after your initial pitch. Keep it short. Reference your original email in one line, add one new piece of value (a fresh content idea, a relevant metric, a new piece of UGC), and close with a simple call to action.

Follow-up #2: Send 5–7 days after follow-up #1, if there's still no response. This is your final follow-up. Keep it even shorter, two to three lines maximum. Something like: "I know things get busy. I'm still genuinely excited about collaborating with [Brand], happy to send over some content ideas if that would help."

After two follow-ups with no response, move on. More than three follow-ups risk getting flagged as spam and can damage your sender reputation, which affects deliverability on all future emails.

Avoid over-sequencing; more than four follow-ups can increase unsubscribe and spam complaint rates, which harm your reputation.

Apply the same day and time logic to your follow-ups that you apply to your initial pitch. A follow-up sent on a Thursday at 7 AM will perform better than one fired off at 3 PM on a Friday.

Timing your emails is a simple tweak that yields massive returns. You do the hard work of creating incredible content; don't let a bad timestamp ruin your chances of getting paid.

Start batching your pitches on Sundays, schedule them out for Tuesday through Thursday mornings, and watch your reply rate climb. You've got this.