# Recommended send time

When you send an email from a campaign or a newsletter, Customer.io can recommend an appropriate send time based on your users’ time zones.

 Is Customer.io AI enabled?

You need to enable Customer.io AI in [your Data & Privacy settings](https://fly.customer.io/settings/privacy) to use this feature—if you haven’t already. See our [AI overview](/ai/use-llms/) to learn more about how you can use AI in Customer.io.

## How it works[](#how-it-works)

When you set up a newsletter or an email in a campaign, you can click **Recommend send time** to schedule the email to send at the best time for your audience.

To generate recommended send times, we use AI along with the content of your message and your audience’s time zone. The recommendation also sets a fallback send time, which we’ll use whenever we don’t know someone’s time zone.

 Recommended send times don’t account for holidays

Recommended send times help you send messages at the right times when users encounter a message, but they don’t account for holidays and other dates that might be special to your audience (like birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).

## Capture your audience’s time zone[](#capture-your-audiences-time-zone)

To take advantage of send time recommendations, you need to capture your audience’s time zone information. You can do this using our [automatic geolocation data collection](/journeys/geolocation-data/) feature or by setting a `timezone` [attributeA key-value pair that you associate with a person or an object—like a person’s name, the date they were created in your workspace, or a company’s billing date etc. Use attributes to target people and personalize messages.](/journeys/attributes/) in one of [our supported formats](/journeys/example-timezones/).

Anybody who doesn’t have a `cio_timezone` or `timezone` attribute set will get the message at the fallback time. If you’re not sure if people have a `cio_timezone` or `timezone` attribute, you can [browse People in your workspace](https://fly.customer.io/workspaces/last/journeys/people).

## Using recommended send time in a newsletter[](#using-recommended-send-time-in-a-newsletter)

In the **Review** step of a newsletter, click **Recommend send time** to schedule the newsletter to send at the best time for your audience. If you don’t see this setting, you may need to enable Customer.io AI features in your [Data & Privacy settings](https://fly.customer.io/settings/privacy).

When we recommend a send time, you can click **Why this send time?** to get an explanation of why we recommended that time. You can also provide additional context to help us tune the recommendation to better suit your message and audience.

[![A newsletter with a review step. The recommended send time is selected.](https://docs.customer.io/images/sto-newsletter.png)](#6c6bb536b650a59dd7d8bcb2771a2497-lightbox)

## Using recommended send time in a campaign[](#using-recommended-send-time-in-a-campaign)

When you set up an email in a campaign, open your message **Settings** and you’ll see a **Recommended Send Time** option. If you don’t see this setting, you need to enable Customer.io AI features in your [Data & Privacy settings](https://fly.customer.io/settings/privacy).

1.  Click **Recommend Send Time** to schedule the email to send at the best time for your audience.
    
    [![A campaign with a workflow containing a single email. The email is selected and shows the recommended send time options](https://docs.customer.io/images/sto-campaign-setup.png)](#abee2dd3343222238c5bef5b6c7717ef-lightbox)
    
2.  Select the fallback time zone and then click the recommended option.
    
    [![A campaign with a workflow containing a single email. The recommended send time is set and the cursor hovers over the weekday between 9 AM and 5 PM button](https://docs.customer.io/images/sto-campaign-accept.png)](#3e98771d1d30b16b2b030360fe18cd0c-lightbox)
    
3.  (Optional) Click **Why this send time?** to get an explanation of why we recommended that time. You can also provide additional context to help us tune the recommendation to better suit your message and audience.

This creates a new **Time Window** step directly above the message in the workflow. This is how we manage time zone-based sending in a campaign workflow. The *Time Window* step holds people in the campaign until their recommended send time. When they fall into the recommended time window, they’ll get your message and continue through the campaign.

If the person is already in the time window when they reach that step, we’ll send the message immediately and they’ll continue through the campaign. They don’t have to wait for the next time window.

[![A campaign with a workflow containing a single email and a time window step above it representing the recommended send time](https://docs.customer.io/images/sto-campaign-time-window.png)](#33b88c1ffcc7ace64f277ef63e225291-lightbox)

 Set your messages to send automatically

If your messages are set to *Queue Draft*, we’ll queue your draft at the recommended send time but we won’t send it. That might defeat the purpose of using recommended send times. Make sure you set your messages to *Send Automatically* to take advantage of recommended send times.

### Removing or updating the recommended send time[](#removing-or-updating-the-recommended-send-time)

You can edit the time window step directly. If you want to recommend a new time, you’ll need to delete the time window step above your message. Select your message, click **Settings** and then you can recommend a new send time.

When you recommend a new time, we’ll create a new Time Window step above your message.