How can we help?

The email open rate for email marketing indicates the percentage of recipients who opened the email. For example, if your email open rate is 60%, it means that out of 100 emails sent, 60 were opened by the recipients.

The formula for calculating email open rate is:

In your example, if you sent emails to 100 subscribers and 60 of them were opened, the open rate would be:

A higher open rate generally indicates that your audience is interested in the content of your emails, while a lower open rate may suggest the need for adjustments in your email strategy or content.

The click rate is the percentage of people who clicked on any link within your email, relative to the total number of emails delivered.

The formula for calculating email click rate is:

For example, if you sent 500 emails, and 25 recipients clicked on a link, the click rate would be 5% as shown in the calculation below:

The click-through rate is the percentage of people who clicked on a link within your email, but this is calculated based on the number of emails opened rather than the total delivered.

The formula for calculating email click-through rate is:

For example, if out of the 500 emails delivered, 200 were opened, and 25 recipients clicked on a link, the click-through rate would be 12.5% as shown below:

In summary, the click rate considers the total number of emails delivered, while the click-through rate takes into account only the number of emails that were opened. Both metrics provide insights into the engagement and effectiveness of your email campaign, but they focus on different aspects of recipient interaction.

Open rate and click rate are metrics commonly used in email marketing to measure the effectiveness of email campaigns. While they provide valuable insights, it’s important to understand their limitations and factors that can influence their accuracy:

1. Open Rate:
   • Accuracy: Open rates are not always completely accurate. They are typically tracked using a small, invisible image (pixel) embedded in the email. If a recipient has images turned off in their email client or if the email client doesn’t load external images by default, the open may not be recorded.
   • Interpretation: An open is recorded when the tracking pixel is loaded, but it doesn’t guarantee that the recipient has read the email content. Some email clients may automatically load images, leading to false positives.
2. Click Rate:
   • Accuracy: Click rates are generally more accurate than open rates. They are recorded when a user clicks on a link within the email. However, some security measures, like link scanning by email clients or antivirus software, may artificially inflate click rates.
   • Bots and Automated Clicks: Bots or automated systems may click on links, leading to inflated click rates. This is more common in certain industries or regions.
3. Factors Affecting Accuracy:
   • Image Loading: If recipients disable automatic image loading in their email client, open rates may be underreported.
   • Link Scanning: Some security software or email clients may scan links in emails before allowing them to be opened, potentially affecting click rate accuracy.
   • Bots and Automation: Automated bots, web crawlers, or security systems may interact with emails, influencing both open and click rates.
4. Alternative Metrics:
   • Conversion Rates: To get a more comprehensive view of campaign success, consider tracking conversion rates, such as the percentage of recipients who completed a desired action after clicking on a link.
   • Engagement Metrics: Monitoring metrics like time spent on landing pages or interaction with specific elements can provide deeper insights into user engagement.

In conclusion, open rates and click rates offer valuable insights, but they should be interpreted cautiously, considering potential inaccuracies and external factors. It’s often helpful to use them in conjunction with other metrics for a more comprehensive understanding of your email campaign performance.

Increasing the Click Rate in email marketing involves several strategies focused on improving the content, design, and targeting of your emails.

Here are some effective tactics which you can use in your email marketing:

1. Setting up DKIM, SPF, and DMARC correctly

• DKIM: Adds a digital signature to your emails, verifying that the email has not been altered and that it truly comes from your domain.
• SPF: Allows the domain owner to specify which IP addresses are authorized to send emails on behalf of the domain, helping to prevent spoofing.
• DMARC: Aligns SPF and DKIM mechanisms to provide a unified policy for email validation, helping to protect against phishing and spoofing attacks.

2. Create Compelling Subject Lines

• Use Personalization: Include the recipient’s name or other personalized information.
• Be Clear and Concise: Clearly state the value or benefit of opening the email.
• Create a Sense of Urgency: Use phrases like “Limited Time Offer” or “Act Now.”

3. Optimize Email Content

• Focus on Quality Content: Provide valuable and relevant information to your audience.
• Use Strong CTAs: Include clear and compelling calls-to-action (CTAs).
• Keep it Short: Avoid long paragraphs; use bullet points and concise sentences.

4. Personalization and Segmentation

• Segment Your Audience: Group your subscribers based on their behavior, preferences, or demographics.
• Personalize Emails: Tailor content to each segment to make it more relevant.

5. Improve Email Design

• Responsive Design: Ensure your emails look good on all devices.
• Visual Appeal: Use high-quality images and a clean layout.
• Clear and Clickable CTAs: Make your CTA buttons stand out and easy to click.

6. Clean your Email List

• Remove Inactive Subscribers: Identify and remove inactive subscribers regularly who haven’t engaged with your emails over a specific period (e.g., 6 months).
• Validate Email Addresses: Use email validation tools to check for syntax errors, domain validity, and mailbox existence.
• Use Double Opt-In: Ensure new subscribers confirm their email addresses, reducing the likelihood of invalid addresses.
• Implement Re-Engagement Campaigns: Attempt to re-engage inactive subscribers with targeted campaigns. If they don’t respond, consider removing them from your list.

7. Send at the Right Time

• Analyze Audience: Analyze your audience’s behavior to determine the best times and days to send your emails.
• Email-checking Habits: Consider time zones and typical email-checking habits of your audience.

8. Engage Your Audience

• Ask Questions: Encourage replies and interaction.
• Include Interactive Elements: Use polls, quizzes, or clickable images.

9. Optimize for Deliverability

• Clean Your List: Regularly remove inactive subscribers to maintain a healthy email list.
• Avoid Spam Triggers: Be mindful of words and phrases that might trigger spam filters.
• Authenticate Your Emails: Use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve deliverability.

10. Use Analytics and Feedback

• Monitor Performance: Use analytics to track open rates, click rates, and conversions.
• Gather Feedback: Ask your subscribers for feedback to understand what they like and dislike.

11. Leverage Behavioral Triggers

• Automated Campaigns: Set up automated emails based on user behavior, such as abandoned cart reminders or follow-up emails.
• Triggered Emails: Send emails triggered by specific actions, such as a purchase or a sign-up.

12. Provide Incentives

• Exclusive Offers: Offer special discounts or promotions to email subscribers.
• Free Resources: Provide valuable resources like e-books, guides, or templates.

By implementing these strategies, you can significantly increase your Click Rate and overall effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.

MailBluster uses Amazon SES and Amazon SNS to efficiently track all email events, providing comprehensive email tracking capabilities.

MailBluster generates an overview report for each campaign, allowing you to analyze delivery rates, engagement metrics, reactions, and ecommerce data in separate sections for a clear and complete overview.

You can access all campaign reports by navigating to the Brand > Reports page. Once you select a specific campaign, you will see detailed reports for that campaign.

The following are the metrics shown in the Report section of MailBluster for any campaign.

Here is a brief description of the terms used in the Report section of MailBluster:

Overview

• Status: Displays the delivery status of your email campaign.
• Audience: Indicates the name of the segment used for this campaign.
• Recipients: Shows the total number of recipients (leads) in that segment.
• Subject: Displays the subject of the email campaign.

Delivery

• Delivery Rate: The Delivery Rate refers to the percentage of emails successfully delivered to the recipient’s mail server. This includes emails that reached the recipient’s inbox, junk folder, or promotional tab, all of which are considered delivered by the email service provider (ESP).
• Bounce Rate: The Bounce Rate refers to the percentage of emails that failed to be delivered to recipients. Only hard bounces are included in this metric, as they occur when the recipient’s mail server permanently rejects the email. Soft bounces are counted only if Amazon SES fails to deliver the email after multiple retry attempts.
• Failure Rate: The Failure Rate refers to the percentage of recipients or leads who did not receive the email campaign. This includes emails that could not be delivered due to issues such as invalid email addresses or server-related problems.

Engagement

• Open Rate: The Open Rate in the report shows the percentage of recipients who opened an email campaign. This metric indicates how many people opened and viewed the email’s content compared to the total number of emails delivered. Open rates provide insight into the effectiveness of subject lines, sender names, and the overall appeal of the email’s content. Higher open rates generally suggest that the subject lines and content were engaging enough to prompt recipients to open the email.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The Click-Through Rate measures how effective the campaign is at generating clicks relative to the total number of emails delivered, indicating campaign performance and audience targeting.
• Click Rate: The Click Rate refers to the percentage of recipients who clicked on at least one link within an email. This metric measures engagement and shows the effectiveness of the content or call-to-action in the email campaign. A higher click rate generally indicates that the email content was engaging and compelling.
• Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): The Click-to-Open Rate measures how well the email content encourages clicks after the email has been opened, indicating the relevance and effectiveness of the content.

Reactions

• Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of recipients who opt out of future emails. This indicates potential dissatisfaction with the campaign or the content’s relevance to the audience.
• Complaint Rate: The percentage of recipients who mark emails as spam. This may indicate issues with the content’s relevance, the quality of the email list, or the campaign’s targeting strategy.

Ecommerce

• Orders: When an order is generated as a result of a campaign, it will be counted under “Orders” in the campaign report section.
• Revenue: The total price of all generated orders will be recorded as “Revenue.”

In bulk email sending reports, it might seem unusual for the number of clicks to exceed the number of opens, as one would typically expect that an email needs to be opened before it can be clicked. However, several reasons can explain this discrepancy:

1. Image Blocking: Many email clients block images by default. Open metrics often rely on an invisible tracking pixel embedded in the email. If the images are blocked, the tracking pixel won’t load, and the open won’t be recorded, even if the recipient reads the email and clicks a link.

2. Forwarding: If an email recipient forwards the email to someone else, the forwarded recipient might click a link. The click would be recorded, but if the forwarded recipient didn’t download the tracking pixel, the open wouldn’t be recorded.

3. Link Previews: Some email clients or security software scan emails for malicious links by preloading them. This preloading can register as a click even though the email wasn’t actually opened by the recipient.

4. Bot Activity: Anti-spam bots and security software sometimes click links in emails to check for malicious content. These clicks can be recorded even if the email was never opened by a human.

5. Email Client Restrictions: Certain email clients, especially those used in enterprise environments, may block tracking pixels but not the ability to click on links, resulting in clicks being recorded without corresponding opens.

6. User Interaction Variability: Sometimes users interact with their emails in ways that bypass open tracking but still lead to clicks, such as preview panes that don’t load images but allow link interaction.

If you change any configuration on your Amazon SES Dashboard other than the recommended settings suggested by MailBluster, then MailBluster will not be able to track your email campaigns. You will see error like this.

You may notice this error message in MailBluster as well:

To check whether your AWS Configuration sets are set correctly, you need to sign in to your AWS Console of your AWS Account, then go to Amazon SES > Configuration sets. Click on the mailbluster-31436 (the numbers are generated randomly by AWS).

Click on Event destinations and check whether the status of Event publishing is showing Enabled.

If this is set to Disabled, then you can be sure that your AWS account is missing other configurations that MailBluster creates. If you face issues like this, then it’s best to enter your AWS credentials again in MailBluster by going to your Brand > Settings > AWS page and click the Save connection button. If everything works fine, it will create the necessary configurations in your AWS Account again.

If you need to generate AWS credentials properly in AWS then please follow this guide: Connect MailBluster With Your AWS Account. Be sure to sign in as IAM User in AWS.

Click Performance refers to the tracking and analysis of how recipients interact with links in your email campaigns. It shows which links were clicked, how many times they were clicked, and by which recipients. This metric helps you measure the engagement level of your audience, determine which content or calls-to-action were most effective, and optimize future campaigns based on link performance.

To track the links clicked within a campaign, go to the Reports section first. There, you can view the performance of each clicked link in your campaign details by clicking on Click performance tab.

There is a report that shows who clicked in a campaign, and these reports can be exported.

According to Amazon SES’s best practices, it’s recommended to keep your bounce rate below 5% and your complaint rate below 0.1% to ensure optimal email deliverability. Exceeding these thresholds can lead to temporary suspension of your account’s ability to send emails.

Refer to this official AWS document: AWS Email Deliverability Dashboard.

To manage these rates, here are some key points to consider before sending email campaigns through Amazon SES:

1. Legal and Subscribed Recipients: The email addresses of your recipients should be legal, not purchased, and they need to be your domain’s subscribers.
2. Content Compliance: The content of your emails must follow AWS best sending practices. For a detailed list, refer to Email Marketing Best Practices.
3. Proper DNS Setup: Verify that your DNS records are correctly set up for your sender domain. Refer to: Simplify your sender management using MailBluster.

Additionally, these Blog posts may help you:

• How to Improve Email Deliverability?
• How to Prevent your Newsletters going to SPAM?
• Why are my Emails Newsletters landing in SPAM?

To lower your bounce rate, clean up your email list using third-party email verification tools like Never Bounce, Zero Bounce, etc. These tools filter out bounced emails without sending real emails to them. A free tool called Super Email Validator is also available. For more information, refer to this: Clean Your Email List.

To remove bounced leads from your previous campaign, follow this guide: Remove Bounced Leads.

By cleaning your email list and following the above instructions, you should see improved deliverability for your marketing emails.

If you go to your Brand > Report section, you will see all the campaigns for which reports are available. From here, select your desired campaign.

If you go to the detailed report of that campaign, you will first see a summary report or Overview that shows summarized versions of your Delivery, Engagement, Reactions, and Ecommerce reports.

In the second tab, there is an option called Activity, where you can view details about each individual activity, such as Delivered, Opened, Clicked, Not Opened, Bounced, Unsubscribed, Complained, Failed Report. You can see information about which lead performed which activity and when.

Additionally, you can export these activities if you wish. You can click on Export > Export leads or Export activities.

Click performance shows the performance of all the links in your campaign, including information on how many times each link was clicked and when they were clicked.

And the ecommerce report will contain a summarized version of the revenue or ecommerce data received from this campaign.

To export a campaign report, you need to go to Reports section. Then click on the Campaign name of your choice.

Click on Activity and a list of report options will be available. Here we clicked on Delivered. You can select others as well from the list.

It will show the Report on successfully Delivered campaigns. Click on Export.

Click on Export activities to which will export all the details of Delivered.

A pop-up window will appear with the header Export activities. It will show your email through which you will get the download link of the exported CSV file. Click on Export as CSV.

At bottom left screen, you will see Exporting activities.

You have receive an email from MailBluster notifying you that the Export is completed of Delivered activities.

Open the email and click Download activities.

Extract the zip file and open the CSV file. You will see all the details of the Delivered activities.

 In the screenshot, these numbers indicate how many times each lead clicked, as well as how many links were clicked.

You can see the details for each click by expanding the lead’s click details. Click the right arrow button on the left side of each lead to expand the view and show all the click event details. Please refer to the screenshot below for more information.

In email reports, it’s common to see discrepancies between the user agent information for ‘Opens’ and ‘Clicks.’ The difference you’re noticing is because email opens are often tracked by bots or email clients that automatically load images, leading to inaccurate or inconsistent user agent data. As a result, the user agent information in the ‘Opened’ section may not accurately reflect the actual device or operating system of the user.

On the other hand, click data is generally more reliable since it reflects direct user interaction with the email. Therefore, the User agent data in the ‘Clicked’ section (e.g., Chrome 126.0.0.0 / Windows 10) is more likely to be accurate.

MailBluster uses Amazon SES along with Amazon SNS to track email events. When an open or click occurs, SNS sends the information to MailBluster, which then displays it in the Report section. Since AWS handles the tracking, and MailBluster only stores and displays this data, it’s not possible to show the same user agent in both the ‘Clicked’ and ‘Opened’ sections of the report.

You need to pass campaign ID at the time of creating order. You can use query parameters with a link for this purpose. When you create a campaign, you get a campaign ID which is shown in the screenshot. Then with this ID you can create a link like this: https://example.com/product/ball?c=12345
which will be placed into your campaign email. When an order is created, you get the value from URL and pass this query parameter value as campaign ID. When calling the Order API, send the Campaign ID. You will find all the details about Order API here: https://app.mailbluster.com/api-doc/orders

After sending a campaign, you can track how many people have unsubscribed by viewing the campaign report, as shown in the screenshot below.

Go to Activity > Unsubscribed to view the list of unsubscribed leads. When someone unsubscribes from your leads list, they won’t receive any future emails, even if you send another campaign. MailBluster automatically ensures that unsubscribed leads are excluded from all future campaigns.

Here you will notice who has unsubscribed from your current campaign as shown below.

As far as we know, MailBluster uses Amazon SES along with Amazon SNS to track email events. When an open or click occurs, SNS sends the information to MailBluster, which then displays it. Essentially, AWS handles the tracking, while MailBluster stores and displays the data.

However, email open rates are never completely accurate, not just for AWS but for all providers. Opens are tracked by embedding a transparent image in the email and tracking the URL of this image. Most ESPs (Email Service Providers) don’t display images by default, which prevents open tracking. Gmail, however, uses an image proxy server to protect user information and sometimes opens the email before the actual recipient does, causing a false open event.

Therefore, accurately tracking open events is impossible. This explanation is based on our observations and experience. It might not be 100% accurate, as Gmail and other services do not disclose their algorithms. Nonetheless, this seems to be the most logical explanation based on what we’ve observed.

MailBluster can generate an ecommerce report, but you need to provide the ecommerce data using the developer API.

Learn details about Orders from Developer API.

The following screenshot shares the overview of MailBluster ecommerce report:

The ecommerce tab here shows detailed information on how many orders have come from this campaign or how many products have been purchased. All this information is displayed in detail in this ecommerce tab.

And you can view each individual report by clicking on it. For example, I am viewing this report here.

In Campaign Report, the Orders refers to the total number of unique products sold, while Revenue reflects the total income generated from the sale of those products under the campaign. The Orders and Revenue in Campaign Report is useful when you use MailBluster developer API for Products and Orders.

If you click on Ecommerce, you will see the Total orders and its Total price.

When an email fails to deliver, it can fail due to various reasons such as:

1. Permanent Bounce/ Hard bounce: This occurs when an email cannot be delivered due to an invalid email address or a non-existent domain. In such cases, the email server considers the bounce as permanent and won’t attempt further deliveries to that address.

2. Temporary Delivery Issue/Soft bounce: This might happen due to a full recipient mailbox, the recipient server being temporarily down, or other transient issues. In these cases, MailBluster retry sending the email after a certain period.

The rest of your emails might face temporary Delivery Issue/Soft bounce event.

When a soft bounce event happens, SES continuously retries to deliver your email for 12 hours before giving up. There is no limit of retries during this 12-hour interval and as long as the ISP recovers, your email will be delivered.

You can learn more bounce types from the AWS SES document here:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/ses/latest/DeveloperGuide/notification-contents.html#bounce-types

Some subscribers with strict security settings, such as those using .edu or .gov domains, might generate automatic opens or clicks when you email them. This occurs because spam filters preload links and images to ensure their safety. You can verify this by adding a hidden link in one of your email campaigns and seeing if it gets clicked.

If your audience frequently uses strict domains (such as .edu, .gov, etc.), we recommend asking them to provide their personal email addresses when they subscribe for newsletter/email campaign. If you use online forms to collect subscribers, you could add text suggesting that subscribers use their personal email addresses instead of their business email addresses.

To report email abuse, such as spam, phishing, or other malicious activity, you can follow these steps:

1. Identify the Email Provider:

• Check the domain of the sender’s email address (the part after the “@” symbol) to determine which email service provider they use (e.g., Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook).

2. Report to the Email Provider:

• Gmail:
  • Open the email and click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner.
  • Select “Report phishing” or “Report spam.”
• Yahoo:
  • Open the email and click the three horizontal dots in the top-right corner.
  • Select “Report phishing” or “Report spam.”
• Outlook:
  • Open the email and click the “Junk” button in the toolbar.
  • Select “Report phishing” or “Report as junk.”

3. Forward the Email to Abuse Address:

• You can forward the abusive email to the email provider’s abuse address (e.g., [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]). Include the full email headers to help them investigate.
  • To find full email headers:
    • Gmail: Open the email, click the three vertical dots, and select “Show original.”
    • Yahoo: Open the email, click the three horizontal dots, and select “View raw message.”
    • Outlook: Open the email, click the three horizontal dots, and select “View message source.”

4. Report to Anti-Spam Organizations:

• You can report the email to organizations like SpamCop (SpamCop.net – Beware of cheap imitations ) or the Anti-Phishing Working Group (HOME 02042024 ).

5. Block the Sender:

• Most email services allow you to block the sender to prevent future emails from them.

By following these steps, you can help mitigate the impact of email abuse and contribute to a safer email environment.