Use Timewarp

Timewarp is a paid account feature that delivers an email to your audience based on the recipient's time zone, instead of the time zone in your account settings. For example, If you send an email from New York and schedule delivery for 9am, your west coast subscribers would normally get the email at 6am. With Timewarp, they’ll receive it at 9am in their time zone.

In this article, you'll learn how Timewarp works, how to send an email with Timewarp, and how we determine subscriber location.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• This feature is included with the Standard plan or higher.
• This feature is available for regular and plain-text emails. Premium plan users can use Timewarp with classic automations.
• If your account doesn't have enough subscribed contacts with location data, Timewarp won't be available.
• If a Timewarp email is set to auto-post to Facebook or X (formerly Twitter), we'll post the email at the same time the first batch of Timewarp emails are sent.
• Time zones can vary within lines of longitude and aren't straight. To better understand how time zones are laid out, take a look at timeanddate.com.

How Timewarp works

Behind the scenes, Timewarp uses Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). When you send a Timewarp email, we start to send it when the first time zone in the world, UTC +14, reaches your scheduled time. Each hour, we batch emails by time zone and send to subscribed contacts in each area, moving west around the world.

Since some time zones are ahead of yours, you'll need to plan Timewarp emails at least 24 hours in advance.

Example

Let’s say you’re about to send your email from New York City, Eastern Standard Time (UTC -5), and you want your subscribed contacts to receive your email at 10am Tuesday. At 10am EST Tuesday, it's already 8:30pm in Mumbai, and 4am Wednesday in New Zealand. To ensure that no zones miss their scheduled time, set up your Timewarp email at least 24 hours before you want it to go out in your time zone.

How we determine subscriber location

A subscriber's IP address can determine their geographical location. We use geolocation to collect IP addresses from Mailchimp-hosted signup forms, email opens, and clicks. As a subscribed contact continues to interact with your emails, the location or IP address may change. If a subscribed contact didn't use a hosted signup form or hasn't opened a few emails yet, we won't have location data for them.

Subscribed contacts without location data receive Timewarp emails in your account's default time zone batch. If your account doesn't have enough subscribed contacts with location data, Timewarp won't be available.

Send an email with Timewarp

To send an email with Timewarp, follow these steps.

1. In the email builder, click Add Send Time.
2. Click Schedule a time.
3. Choose a Delivery date at least 24 hours from your current date.
4. Scroll down and click the Send with Timewarp radio button.
5. Use the drop-down menus to choose the time you want your subscribed contacts to receive the email. The selected date and time must be at least 24 hours from your current time.
   
6. Click Save.

View or edit your default time zone

To view or edit your time zone, follow these steps.

1. Click your profile icon and choose Profile.
2. Click the Settings drop-down and choose Details.
3. Use the Time zone drop-down to select the correct location.
4. Click Save to apply the changes to your account.