Something didn’t add up.
Our client LLK’s email campaigns were getting opened — just not at the rates we expected. The content was solid. The list was clean. The subject lines were relevant.
So we stopped obsessing over how many people were opening and started asking when they were opening.
Turns out, our audience was trying to tell us something. We just hadn’t noticed yet.
The Pattern We Almost Missed
When we started managing email campaigns for LLK, a company serving many farmers and agricultural workers, the open rates were fine. Solid, even. Right around industry average.
But when you’re trying to reach a specific audience with valuable information, “average” feels like leaving something on the table.
So when we sat down with the LLK team, we dug into patterns in the email data. We noticed not just how many people were opening, but when they were opening.
That’s when we noticed it together: a cluster of opens happening between 4 and 5 a.m. Not a few stragglers. A consistent, significant pattern.
These weren’t insomniacs scrolling their phones. These were people starting their workday.
The Agricultural Reality Check
Here’s what we’d forgotten: farmers don’t work 9-to-5. They’re up before dawn, checking weather forecasts, planning the day’s operations, and — yes — checking email before heading into the field.
By sending our campaigns at 8 or 9 a.m. (standard “best practice” timing), we were landing in inboxes after our audience had already triaged their morning priorities. By the time they circled back to email later in the day, our messages were buried under equipment quotes, supplier updates, and everything else competing for attention.
The fix was simple: move the send time to 3 a.m.
Open rates nearly doubled.
What This Really Means
This isn’t just a story about email timing. It’s about the gap between marketing assumptions and audience reality.
We’d been optimizing for what works in general: peak engagement windows based on aggregated data across industries. But our audience wasn’t general. They were specific people with specific routines shaped by the demands of agriculture.
The data was telling us that all along. We just needed to listen.
How to Find Your Own Hidden Patterns
You probably have similar insights hiding in your metrics right now. Here’s how to surface them:
1. Look beyond the top-line numbers. Don’t just track open rates or click-throughs. Dig into when those actions happen. Most email platforms and analytics tools let you view activity by hour or day of the week.
2. Ask: What does this behavior tell us about their day? If your audience engages at unusual times, there’s usually a reason. Early mornings might mean shift workers. Late nights could indicate busy professionals catching up. Weekends might reveal decision-makers working outside office hours.
3. Cross-reference with what you know (or should know) about their work. Talk to your sales team. Interview customers. Read industry publications. The best marketing insights come from understanding your audience’s lived experience, not just their demographic profile.
4. Test your hypothesis. We didn’t just shift to 3 a.m. and hope for the best. We ran controlled tests, monitored the results, and confirmed the pattern held across multiple sends before making it our standard.
5. Keep watching. Audience behavior shifts. Seasons change. Industries evolve. What works today might need adjustment six months from now. Set regular check-ins to review your engagement patterns.
The Bigger Lesson
B2B marketing loves best practices. And for good reason, they can provide helpful starting points.
But best practices are built on averages. Your audience isn’t average. They’re procurement managers squeezing inbox time between production meetings. Plant operators checking updates during shift changes. Farmers reading email before sunrise.
Marketing metrics don’t just measure campaign performance. They show you how your audience lives and works.
So, pay attention to the patterns. Question your assumptions. And when the data whispers something unexpected — like “your audience is awake at 4 a.m.” — lean in and listen.