The Best Time to Send Cold Outreach: What 300 Million Calls and 16.5 Million Emails Actually Show

What the data actually says about when to send, and why knowing it still isn't enough.

Tuesday morning. 10 AM. Prospect's local time.

That's the conventional wisdom. Ask any sales trainer, read any outreach guide, and you'll hear some version of this advice.

The research backs it up. Sort of.

We went through the major studies: 1.4 million cold calls analyzed by ZoomInfo, 300 million calls studied by Gong, 16.5 million cold emails examined across multiple research teams, and 2.7 billion LinkedIn engagements tracked by Sprout Social. We didn't run these experiments ourselves, but the patterns across hundreds of millions of touches are consistent enough to act on.

The problem is execution. You know Tuesday 10 AM is the window. You know evening emails outperform afternoon sends. You've bookmarked every study.

Then you finish writing an email at 3 PM and hit send because you're done. You mean to follow up on day 3 and realize on day 12 you forgot. Your prospect is in Singapore and optimal send time is 2 AM your time.

Knowing the optimal time is useless if you can't execute on it. This guide covers what the research shows, channel by channel, and what to do about the execution gap.

What the Email Data Shows (2026)

Best Days to Send Cold Emails

Consistent across every study we reviewed.

Midweek wins. Monday is recovery, Friday is wind-down. Tuesday through Thursday captures people when they're in work mode but not overwhelmed.

Best Times to Send Cold Emails

That evening window catches people off guard. Analysis of 16.5 million B2B cold emails found that messages sent between 8-11 PM achieved a 6.52% reply rate, beating traditional business hours. Executives check email in the evening with fewer competing messages. Your email doesn't get buried under 50 others that all arrived at "optimal time."

Yesware found that 75% of all cold emails are opened within 1 hour of sending, and 95% of replies come within 24 hours. So timing isn't just about the day and hour. It's about landing in the inbox at the moment your prospect is actively checking.

Persona-Specific Timing

Generic "best time" advice doesn't account for how your specific buyer works. A sustainability director's schedule looks different from a sales VP's.

What the Phone Data Shows

Cold calling has its own timing dynamics, and some of the conventional wisdom is flat wrong.

Best Days for Cold Calls

ZoomInfo analyzed 1.4 million outbound calls:

Tuesday and Wednesday dominate. Friday is a waste of dial time.

Best Times to Make Cold Calls

The afternoon finding surprises people. "Never call after 4 PM" is common advice. Revenue.io's data says the opposite: decision-makers have wrapped up their meetings by late afternoon. They're at their desk, winding down, and more receptive to unexpected calls. They pick up.

Avoid 7-9 AM (people rushing to start), noon (lunch), and after 5 PM (commute). Call duration data confirms it: calls during those windows are the shortest on average.

The Connection Rate Reality

Same prospects, same phones. Top performers book 9x more meetings per month. Timing, targeting, and technique account for most of that gap.

What the LinkedIn Data Shows

LinkedIn engagement follows the "break" schedule. People check it between meetings, at lunch, and at end of day. Not during deep work.

Best Days and Times

Sprout Social analyzed 2.7 billion engagements across 436,000 profiles:

Best messaging windows: 9-11 AM (morning routine), 1-2 PM (post-lunch), and 4-5 PM (wind-down).

Industry-Specific LinkedIn Timing

Tech and startup people have unpredictable schedules. You might catch them early morning or late evening. Traditional industries stick to business hours.

One stat from LinkedIn's own InMail research: messages under 400 characters get 22% better response rates. The shortest messages outperformed the longest by 41%. LinkedIn isn't email. Brevity wins.

The Voicemail Strategy Most Reps Get Wrong

Most reps either skip voicemails entirely or leave too many. Gong studied 300 million calls and the data is clear:

Voicemails don't generate callbacks. They prime email responses. Leaving a voicemail more than doubles your email reply rate. But after 3 voicemails, reply rates drop below what you'd get with no voicemail at all. You've crossed from persistent to annoying.

The "Double Tap" rule:

• Leave exactly 2 voicemails maximum
• First voicemail: 15 seconds, context only, no pitch
• Second voicemail: 30 seconds, context plus social proof
• Then stop calling and focus on other channels

Best times to leave voicemails: 10-11:30 AM (18% above average callback rate) and 4-5:30 PM (15% above average). Late afternoon works because people listen to voicemails as they're leaving.

The Multi-Channel Timing Advantage

Using 3+ channels doubles engagement rates and lifts reply likelihood by over 50% (Cognism, Woodpecker, and Leads at Scale all converge on this). Email alone gets baseline results. Email plus phone plus LinkedIn gets 2x.

A Sample 10-Day Sequence

The "Power of Three" technique: On day 1, hit the prospect with three different touches in quick succession. Morning email, midday LinkedIn, afternoon call. This creates pattern interruption and builds familiarity fast.

Follow-Up Timing

First follow-up after 2-3 business days. Second follow-up 4-5 days later. Third and beyond, 5-7 days each. For C-level targets, space all touches 5-7 days apart. Most replies come within 2 days, so if you haven't heard back in 3, following up is fair game.

Follow-Up Discipline Beats Timing

Cognism's cadence research:

48% of sales reps never send a second message.

80% of sales require 5 or more touches.

Half of all reps give up after one attempt. Four out of five sales need at least five. If you're one-and-done, you're leaving most of your potential pipeline on the table.

The Breakup Email Effect

The "breakup email" is the final message in a sequence that signals you're about to stop reaching out. Multiple sales teams report it consistently outperforms every other email in the sequence. Loss aversion kicks in when people realize the option is about to disappear.

Most reps never send it because they give up at message 2 or 3. The breakup email requires getting to message 5, 6, or 7 first.

Why We Built Emitree to Handle This

Timing optimization requires either superhuman discipline or automation. Most sales teams have the research. Very few can execute on it consistently across timezones, channels, and follow-up cadences while doing the rest of their job.

That's why we built automated outreach into Emitree. Sends scheduled for 9 AM in each prospect's timezone. Follow-ups triggered on day 2, 5, 10. Voicemails capped at 2. Multi-channel sequences that run while your team focuses on the conversations that actually close deals.

Quick Reference: The Optimal Timing Cheat Sheet

Email

Phone

LinkedIn

Voicemail

Sources

Phone timing & connection rates:

• ZoomInfo: Best Days to Cold Call (1.4M calls)
• Revenue.io: Top Cold Calling Times
• Cognism: Cold Calling Statistics 2026

Voicemail effectiveness:

• Gong Labs: Cold Calling Insights from 300M Calls
• Gong Labs: Voicemail Effectiveness Research

Email timing & reply rates:

• Zeliq: Best Days for Email Open Rates
• Smartlead: Cold Email Stats 2025
• Superhuman: Email Response Time Statistics

LinkedIn timing & engagement:

• Sprout Social: Best Times to Post on LinkedIn (2.7B engagements)
• LinkedIn: InMail Response Rates

Multi-channel cadence & follow-up:

• Cognism: How to Build Cadences That Convert
• Leads at Scale: 7-Touch Outbound Sequence
• Growth List: Cold Email Follow-Up Timing

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