Best Time Delivery

Best Time Delivery automatically determines the optimal hour to send push notifications to each user, for each day of the week. Instead of selecting a single global delivery time, it personalizes delivery based on each user’s historical in-app activity. This ensures messages are delivered at the moments when users are statistically most active and most likely to engage.

Why It Matters

Marketers often focus on crafting the perfect message, but timing is equally critical. Even the best campaign can underperform if it reaches users when they are inactive or less receptive. Best Time Delivery answers the question:

“When is the best hour to deliver a push notification to this user on this day?”

By aligning delivery with real user behavior patterns, campaigns achieve higher open and click rates, while minimizing wasted impressions.

How It Works

Best Time analyzes each user’s past app activity to detect their most active hours for each weekday. Using this insight, the system chooses the best hour to deliver your message within your campaign’s defined delivery window. If the user lacks data, a global best time for that weekday is applied as a fallback, ensuring coverage across your entire audience.

Configuration

1. Create or Edit a Push Campaign Navigate to the Campaign Scheduling step.

2. Select Best Time Delivery In the Delivery Time section, choose Best Time as the delivery option.

3. Adjust Fallback Behavior (Optional)

   • Enable Send Instantly if Best Time Has Passed to allow instant delivery if the calculated best time period is before the scheduled campaign.

   • Leave it disabled if you prefer users to be skipped when all eligible send times have passed.

4. Finalize and Publish Review your settings, then save and publish the campaign. Best Time Delivery will automatically handle delivery timing at send time.

Terminology Table

Behavior at Send Time

Best Time Delivery bases its delivery decisions on the Time in App event. For each user, the system evaluates their activity over the last 60 days, determining the hours during which they are most active on each weekday. These active periods are then used to decide the exact delivery time for each user when a push campaign is scheduled.

How Best Times Are Determined

• AM Best Time — The hour between 00:00 and 11:59 when the user is most active.

• PM Best Time — The hour between 12:00 and 23:59 when the user is most active.

• Daily Best Time — The single hour (between AM and PM peaks) when the user is most active overall for that weekday.

• App Global Best Time — The single hour when the most user time in app event occurs in each day.

Delivery Logic Hierarchy

Daily → AM/PM → Global Time → No match → Fallback

1. Daily Best Time Check

   • If the campaign is scheduled at or before a user’s Daily Best Time, the notification is sent at that hour.

2. AM/PM Best Time Check

   • If the Daily Best Time doesn’t match the campaign schedule, the system checks whether the user’s AM or PM Best Time falls after or at the campaign time.

   • If yes, the message is scheduled at the valid AM or PM Best Time.

3. App Global Best Time Check

   • If the campaign is scheduled after the user’s Daily, AM, and PM Best Times, the system checks if the App Global Best Time falls after or at the campaign time.

   • If yes, the message is scheduled at the App Global Best Time.

4. No Activity Data

   • If the user has no activity data for that weekday, the system uses the App Global Best Time.

5. No Matching Best Times

   • If the campaign is scheduled after the user’s Daily, AM, and PM Best Times, the user will not receive the notification, unless fallback behavior is enabled.

6. Fallback Behavior

   • Enabling Send Instantly if Best Time Has Passed ensures users whose best time or global best time periods have already passed still receive the message immediately (within delivery window).

Example Scenarios

Quiet Hours

Quiet Hours are predefined time periods during which push notifications should not be delivered to users. This setting ensures that messages are not sent during inappropriate or low-engagement hours, such as late at night, helping protect user experience and comply with communication policies.

When Best Time Delivery is active, quiet hours are always respected. If a user’s Daily, AM, PM, or Global Best Time falls inside the quiet hours window, the message will not be sent at that time.

Best Time Delivery is entirely data-driven. It replaces guesswork and generic scheduling with user-specific delivery timing, functioning like an automated behavioral heatmap built directly into your campaign engine. This ensures each message reaches users at the optimal time to maximize engagement.

FAQs

Q1: How often is Best Time recalculated? Best Time is recalculated continuously based on the last 60 days of Time in App data. As user behavior changes over time, their best times are automatically updated without any manual action required.

Q2: Does Best Time work the same for all weekdays? No. Best Time is calculated separately for each weekday. A user’s optimal send time may vary between days (e.g., Monday vs. Friday), and delivery decisions always use the best time for the specific weekday of the campaign.

Q3: What happens if a user has no activity data? If a user has no Time in App data for the past 60 days, their best times cannot be calculated. In this case, the App Global Best Time for that weekday is used as a fallback. If no global time is applicable, the user is skipped unless the Send Instantly if Best Time Has Passed option is enabled.

Q4: What if the calculated best time falls within Quiet Hours? If a user’s best time (Daily, AM, PM, or Global) is inside the Quiet Hours window, the notification is not delivered at that time. If no alternative valid time remains, the user is skipped unless Send Instantly if Best Time Has Passed is enabled and the current time is outside quiet hours.

Q5: Can I use Best Time with other scheduling options? No. Best Time is a delivery-time setting, not a campaign trigger. You must choose either a fixed delivery time or Best Time. When Best Time is selected, Netmera handles delivery timing for each user individually.

Q6: Does Best Time affect reporting? No separate metrics are generated for Best Time. All deliveries using Best Time are included in standard push campaign reports. You can evaluate its impact by comparing open and click rates against campaigns scheduled at a fixed time.

Q7: Is Best Time available for all campaign types? Currently, Best Time Delivery is supported for push campaigns only. It is not available for SMS, email, or other channel types.