Prerequisites
- Email Analytics and Sender Reputation — What the screen is for
Email Metrics Explained
A field guide to the figures, including which ones ignore your filters.
The figures on Communication > Email > Analytics & Reputation divide into three groups: the six cards across the top, the charts beneath them, and the At a glance list.
Almost everything follows the Period and Stream filters. Two figures deliberately do not, and they are called out below so you do not read them as period numbers.
The six cards
| Card | What it counts | How it is calculated |
|---|---|---|
| Sent | Messages accepted for delivery in the period. | A direct count. The smaller figure beneath it is how many of those had tracking enabled. |
| Bounce Rate | Messages that could not be delivered. | Bounced ÷ sent, as a percentage. Coloured by the reputation band it falls into. |
| Spam Rate | Recipients who marked your mail as spam. | Complaints ÷ sent, as a percentage, to three decimal places because the safe range is very small. Also coloured by band. |
| Open Rate | Recipients who opened at least once. | Unique opens ÷ sent — not ÷ tracked. See the note below. |
| Click Rate | Recipients who clicked at least one link. | Unique clicks ÷ sent. The line beneath shows click-to-open instead. |
| Opt-outs / Suppressed | Addresses that currently cannot be emailed. | The size of the suppression list, counted once per address. Follows the stream and the opt-out filters, but not the period — a suppression is current state, not an event in a date range. Selecting it scrolls to the list itself. |
Info: Open and click rates are measured against everything sent, including messages where an open could never be recorded. An open is only counted when the recipient's email client loads a tracking pixel, and many block it by default. Treat open rate as a floor rather than a precise figure, and lean on clicks and replies for real engagement.
At a glance
| Row | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total opens | Every open, including the same person opening repeatedly. Higher than unique opens. |
| Total clicks | Every click, including repeats by the same recipient. |
| Click-to-open rate | Unique clicks ÷ unique opens: of the people who opened, how many went on to click. The cleanest read on whether the message persuaded anyone. |
| SMTP API errors | Messages rejected before sending because the request itself was faulty. Normally zero. |
| Inactive recipients (all time) | Addresses your sending infrastructure will not attempt, counted across the whole server for all time. It ignores both filters, which is why it is labelled. Expect it to differ from the Opt-outs / Suppressed card, which is scoped and deduplicated. |
The charts
Deliverability over time
— Sent, bounced and spam complaints per day across the period. Use it to tie a spike to a particular send.
Bounce breakdown
— Bounces by type for the period and stream. Shows "No bounces" when there are none.
Engagement over time
— Unique opens and unique clicks per day.
Opens by platform
— Desktop, mobile, webmail or unknown. Useful for deciding how hard to work on mobile layout.
Top email clients
— The ten most common clients among recorded opens, so you know what to test against.
Bounce types in the breakdown
Hard bounce
— The address does not exist. These suppress the address automatically and are the ones that damage reputation.
Soft bounce
— A full mailbox or a server problem. Usually resolves without action.
Message delayed
— Delivery was deferred and may still succeed.
Spam complaint
— A recipient reported the message. Suppresses the address and cannot be reversed by you.
Blocked
— The receiving server refused the message, often on reputation grounds.
SMTP API error
— The send request was malformed. Investigate rather than retry.
Auto responder
— An out-of-office or similar automatic reply. Harmless.
Unsubscribe
— Recorded through an unsubscribe mechanism rather than a delivery failure.
Period options
Last 7 days
— Today and the six days before it.
Last 30 days
— The default view.
Last 90 days
— Long enough to see a trend rather than a single send.
Last 12 months
— A rolling year, counted in days rather than calendar months.
All time
— Everything this brand has ever sent.
Custom range
— Pick a start and end date, then select Apply.
