Cadence and timing

Send too often and you're spam. Send too slowly and they forget. Good cadence is respectful enough to feel human and frequent enough to stay top of mind. The defaults below work in B2B.

The standard cadence

For a 5-touch sequence over 22-25 days:

• Email 1: Day 0
• Email 2: Day 3 (bump)
• Email 3: Day 8 (reframe)
• Email 4: Day 13 (case study)
• Email 5: Day 22 (breakup)

Day of week

Best days (by open and reply rate)

• Tuesday morning (best for most B2B)
• Wednesday morning
• Thursday morning

Worst days

• Monday morning (inbox overload)
• Friday afternoon (weekend mode)
• Any weekend (lowest open rates)

For high-volume sequences, spread sends across Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday to avoid your entire campaign competing with itself in the inbox.

Time of day

Best times (recipient local time)

• 7-8am (catches them checking email before the workday)
• 10-11am (morning flow, prime inbox time)
• 1-2pm (post-lunch recovery, return to email)

Worst times

• Between 3pm-5pm (deep work, meeting-heavy)
• After 6pm (skipped or deferred)
• Before 6am (looks automated)

The local-time trap

Sending from Pacific time to Eastern prospects at 8am PT = 11am ET. Late morning for the recipient, fine. Sending from Pacific at 8am ET = 5am PT. You're awake at 5am? It looks automated.

Good cold email tools (Instantly, Smartlead) support recipient-timezone sending. Use it. Every email hits at the recipient's 9am regardless of where you are.

Daily volume per mailbox

Covered in detail on multi-inbox rotation. Limits:

• New mailbox (warmed < 8 weeks): 10-20/day
• Established mailbox: 30-50/day
• Never above 80/day on a single mailbox

Frequency caps

The prospect should never get two emails from you in one day. The sequence automatically handles this, but if you run multiple campaigns, ensure global frequency caps so one prospect doesn't receive email 3 of Campaign A and email 1 of Campaign B on the same day.

Weekly volume distribution

For a 1,500 email/week operation:

• Monday: 200 (light)
• Tuesday: 400 (strong)
• Wednesday: 400 (strong)
• Thursday: 350 (solid)
• Friday: 150 (light)
• Weekend: 0

Holidays and slow weeks

• US Thanksgiving week, skip Thursday and Friday
• Christmas and New Year's, pause entire sequences from Dec 22 - Jan 2
• July 4 week, lower volume, skip Friday
• Last week of August, reduced engagement; lower volume

Emails sent in these periods either get buried or land when your prospect returns to a backed-up inbox. Pause, resume when attention returns.

The A/B test on cadence

Default cadences (3-5 day gaps) work. But for your specific audience, test:

• Faster: 2-day gaps (total sequence 10-12 days)
• Slower: 5-7 day gaps (total sequence 25-30 days)

Enterprise buyers with long decision cycles often tolerate and respond better to slower cadences. SMB impulse buyers often respond better to faster.

What to do with this

• Match cadence to buyer decision speed, SMB tolerates faster, enterprise needs slower, one-size-fits-all cadences fail both
• Test 3-day default gap as a middle ground if you're not sure, then adjust based on reply-rate data after 2-3 weeks
• Space emails unevenly, 2-3-4-7 day gaps tend to outperform mathematical spacing by giving the last touch breathing room
• Send during business hours in the recipient's timezone, mid-morning Tuesday-Thursday, Mondays and Fridays underperform consistently
• Review cadence per campaign quarterly, market norms shift (saturation, holiday seasons), a rigid cadence from last year may underperform now