Christmas-themed and general winter holiday season emails have higher open rates when sent weeks or even months earlier than immediately before the target holiday, according to a recent report from Yesmail Interactive.

However, themed emails for holidays that do not usually involve gift-giving (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday) have the best open rates right before the holiday or actually on it.

Below, key findings from the report, which was based on fourth quarter 2013 data from the email campaigns of 30 major brands.

Christmas/Winter Holiday Emails

• Christmas and general winter holiday season email campaigns had higher open rates last year in late October/November than in December.
• During the three weeks leading up to Christmas, base (non-themed) campaigns received marginally higher open rates than Christmas-themed ones, and general winter holiday-themed emails received the same engagement rates as base campaigns.