Understand your reports

After every send, Reports shows how your email performed. Here's how to read the numbers and act on them.

The core metrics

• Open rate — the share of recipients who opened. A signal of subject-line strength and sender trust. (Note that privacy features on some inboxes inflate opens, so treat the trend as more reliable than the absolute number.)
• Click rate — who clicked a link. The truest measure of engagement and of whether your content landed.
• Bounce rate — mail that couldn't be delivered. A hard bounce (address doesn't exist) is suppressed automatically; a soft bounce (temporary, e.g. full mailbox) is retried.
• Unsubscribe rate — people opting out. A small, steady rate is healthy; a spike means a message missed the mark.
• Spam complaints — the most important number to keep near zero. Complaints damage your reputation fastest.

What good looks like

Benchmarks vary by industry, but as a rough guide: a click rate above a couple of percent is solid, bounces under 2%, and complaints well under 0.1%. Compare against your own history more than against anyone else's.

Acting on the data

• Low opens? Test subject lines and send to a more engaged segment.
• Good opens, low clicks? Your subject promised something the content didn't deliver — tighten the call to action.
• Rising bounces? Your list is ageing or was imported from a stale source. Clean it.
• Rising complaints or unsubscribes? Slow down, segment more tightly, and revisit whether everyone on the list genuinely opted in.

Reports are most useful as a trend. Watch how each send compares to your last few, and let that guide the next one.