Best time for webinars in 2024

When planning your webinar there are so many important factors you have to think about. And make sure you pick the best time for your webinar before you launch should be a core part of your webinar strategy.

After all, if no one is there to watch it, you’re not going to succeed. 

In today’s article, I’ll walk you through key webinar statistics, best practices on selecting the best times to host a webinar, when people will actually show up!

Best time for webinars

The best time to host your webinar is between 10-12 am.

However, the timing has the additional complexity of different time zones. You’ve got to take into account whether your target audience is on the East coast, West coast, or even in Europe or Asia.

These factors will massively impact your attendance and conversion rates.

Hubspot for example schedules their webinars at 1 pm or 2 pm EST. This is the time that works best for the biggest chunk of their audience. 

However, much like anything in marketing…

You’ll need to test this to see what works for your audience. 

Here’s the research to get you started. 

GoToMeeting found that for a US audience, between 10 am & 11 am Pacific Time Zone are the best times to host a webinar, clocking in at 29% and 24% of total attendees respectively. 

best time for webinars graph

While research from ON24 generated similar results with 11 am coming out at the most popular time with 24% of attendees.

It’s pretty clear that around 11 am is a perfect time. Personally, I’ve found that 10 am has worked well for me, so don’t be afraid to test to find the ideal webinar time for your audience.

If your webinar starts between 10 am to 2 pm then you can’t go too far wrong. But avoid a start time of 12 pm. Don’t mess about with people’s lunch hour. They won’t thank you for it.

The perfect time is the one that works for the largest chunk of your audience. If you work with clients from LA to London then you’ll never find a time that suits everyone.

So focus on “times that work for bigger segments of your audience and promote automated webinar replays to the rest of your audience.

An important point to note is that research focuses on attendance rates throughout the week and not the day that the webinar registration took place. You’re likely to see different data on when people register as they plan their time.

Best time for automated webinars

Unlike live webinars, you can run automated webinars around the clock. This is one of the many reasons I love automated webinars. And why you should be using them. 

Whenever someone sees your landing page, they can click through, fill in the registration form, and attend the on-demand webinar at their leisure.

And people seem to register about evenly through the week.

A report by Workcast shows that registrations for automated webinars are pretty even Monday to Friday.

This suggests that your automated webinars don’t even need to be scheduled on specific days of the week. 

Just make sure the webinar is worth attending and people will find the time to watch it. 

If you’re like me and work through a to-do list each day then at the end of the day is an ideal time for me to watch a webinar. Once I’ve wrapped up my tasks for the day I’m far more likely to consider signing in to that webinar I saw earlier. 

Work-related vs non-work-related Webinars

I’ve focussed on work-related webinars in this article. But what about non-work-related webinars such as personal finance, or Personal Development? Surely people can’t be expected to watch these during work hours?

You’re absolutely right. 

Evenings and weekend webinars will absolutely work for side hustle webinars. One way to hyperdrive these webinars is to make automated webinars. This way your audience can fit your event into their schedule wherever they can. 

Best days for webinars

The best day of the week to host a webinar is mid-week, on either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.

Research from various webinar platforms backs this up convincingly. Though there are conflicting data on which is the best day.

Research by Gotomeeting from over 600,000 webinars shows that Wednesday and Thursday are the best days.

These two days together make up over 50% of webinar attendees at 26% each respectively with Tuesday accounting for 24%. 

best days for webinar graph

Whereas research by ON24 showed that Wednesday leads the way at 28% of attendees, with Thursday (27%) and Tuesday (24%) following. 

If you add those numbers together, it’s pretty obvious to see that the other two days are… let’s say lacking a bit. They only account for around 25% of total attendees when summed together

Whether that is because no one is hosting live events on those days isn’t clear. But it’s safe to say we have three clear winning options. 

While scheduling your event for Monday or Friday is likely to make it stand out, there are no prizes for bucking the trend… 

Protip: Be sure to send out a reminder email early in the week and post on social media to ensure a high webinar attendance rate

Why is this?

Generally speaking, Mondays are packed with planning for the week and attending meetings. Fridays being the last day of the workweek, on the other hand, are more about catching up on emails and work from throughout the week.

Conclusion

The key takeaway is to always aim to maximize the potential for large audiences. The best time for webinars is whenever your target audience is most likely to show up.

Keep in mind time zones and avoid people’s lunch hour!

If you serve a wide geography then consider creating automated webinars and make them available throughout the week.

Don’t forget to send a post-webinar survey after your event! Check out my guide on the post webinar survey questions you need to ask!