If there’s one thing every email marketer wants to know, its how can I be sure I get effective email marketing and the answer to this question: When is the best time to send an email? By the time you finish this article, you’ll finally know the answer.

The thing is, its pretty darn obvious why this question is asked all the time. If all of us email marketers know when our readers are using their computers, then there’s a much better likelihood that they’ll look at it. And of course if they do look at it, they’ll probably open it, and go to our sites, use their credit cards and buy our stuff.

And so email marketers try to find the sweet spot: That point when the recipients email inbox is fairly empty, so your email will be easy to spot. Maybe you want to find a time of the day when the recipient has a few minutes to spare. Perhaps you look for a day of the week when its likely our subscribers are sitting at their computers.

Unfortunately this isn’t exactly science. We can do much better than simply guessing when the best time is to put cash in our pockets.

If you want to be certain about the best time to send an email, then you need to follow this simple two-step system

Step #1: Know when your recipients are more likely to be online.

Don’t guess! Instead, go to your traffic logs. Find out when your website is the busiest. And in particular, find out when most of the people on your list joined your list. If you can find a pattern where they joined on a particular day and approximate time range, then that is probably the best time to send an email.

TIP: If you have a global audience, then people who sign up for your list on their lunch break in London is a completely different time then those who are joining during lunch time in San Francisco. If you use a service like Aweber, you can segment your list by region, which allows you to more easily send emails to a global audience for more effective email marketing.

After you have figured out the most likely time when most of your recipients are online, you can go ahead and begin sending mail out. But remember for really effective email marketing, to also use Step #2

Quite simply step #2 is: Track and test your results!

Of course traffic logs and autoresponder statistics could actually suggest that lots of subscribers joined during their lunch break and that doesn’t mean that twelve noon will be the best time to send them mail. More likely, you’re going to find that your readers are much more responsive later in the evening, after they have come home. You will certainly find that they are more responsive to your offers in the morning.

The important thing to remember is to be sure to find out when your recipients are online serves as a beginning only. You will however need to test your list to find out when they’re most profitable. What that ultimately means you need to start creating identical emails, splitting and testing your list, and broadcasting your emails at different times of the day.

Finally your subscribers will ultimately vote with their wallets. The only way to very effective email marketing and to know for sure when your list is the most eager to respond to your offer is tracking and testing.