Picking a launch time when your audience is global
There is no single hour that suits New York, London and San Francisco. The question is which audience you are optimising for — and whether one session is enough.
Start from the audience, not the calendar
The slot follows from who you actually need in the room:
| Primary audience | Slot | Who else can attend |
|---|---|---|
| US east coast | 11:00 New York | Europe at 16:00–17:00; US west at 08:00 |
| US west coast | 10:00 Los Angeles | US east at 13:00; Europe is done for the day |
| Europe | 14:00 London | US east at 09:00; US west too early |
| US + Europe evenly | 16:00 London | 11:00 New York, 08:00 Los Angeles |
16:00 London is the widest single slot: late afternoon in Europe, late morning on the US east coast, early but workable on the west.
Two sessions beat one compromise
If the audience is genuinely split, running the same session twice usually outperforms one awkward middle. A morning European session and an afternoon American one both land inside normal hours, and the second run is cheaper to deliver than the first.
Days matter as much as hours
- Tuesday to Thursday consistently outperform Monday and Friday.
- Avoid the week of a major public holiday in either region — including US Thanksgiving and the European August lull.
- Check for clashes with large industry events in your sector.
Publish the time properly
Registration pages that show a single zone lose attendees. Show the time in at least three — a US eastern, a US pacific and a European reading — or better, render it in the visitor's own zone. A calendar file attached to the confirmation email removes the problem entirely.
The recording is not a fallback
Treat the recording as a first-class deliverable rather than a consolation prize. In practice a large share of a global audience will always watch afterwards, and planning for that changes how you structure the session — shorter, tighter, and with the demo early.
Registration pages that do not lose people
The most common failure is a page showing one time zone. A visitor in another region either does the conversion themselves, gets it wrong, or leaves. Three fixes, in order of effectiveness:
- Render in the visitor's own zone with a line of JavaScript reading their browser zone.
- Show three anchors — US eastern, US pacific and a European reading.
- Attach a calendar file to the confirmation email so the entry lands correctly regardless.
Reminder timing matters more than you think
| When | Purpose |
|---|---|
| On registration | Calendar file, so it exists in their diary |
| 24 hours before | Time shown in their zone, with the joining link |
| 1 hour before | Short, link only |
| Within 24 hours after | Recording plus a written summary |
The 24-hour reminder is the one that most affects attendance, and it is also the one most often sent in the host's zone only.
Public holidays are asymmetric
US Thanksgiving, Independence Day and Memorial Day empty an American audience while Europe works normally. August empties much of continental Europe while the US does not notice. Labour Day falls in September in the US and on 1 May in most of Europe. Check both calendars before fixing a date.
Two sessions, one recording
If you run the session twice, record the better one and send the same recording to both audiences. Splitting the follow-up into two versions doubles the work and halves the attention each gets.
The metric to watch
Registration-to-attendance rate by region. If one region registers well and attends poorly, the slot is wrong for them — not the content.
Filed under Marketing · Tags: webinar, product launch, audience, scheduling. Figures verified against the official definitions — see our editorial policy.
