Before you begin looking at your email statistics, there are a few terms and concepts you will need to understand.
Opens
- The Opens rate is calculated by dividing the number of unique opens by the number of recipients.
- We cannot track opens for subscribers who opened the plain-text version of the email, or who do not have download images turned on.
- Since tracking opens on Apple devices is no longer available, your open rate may appear higher than normal, depending on how many of these devices you have in your program
Clicks
- Clicks are tracked as unique click per unique link, then divided by the number of recipients.
- If one subscriber clicks 3 different links in your email, that will count as 3 clicks. However, if they were to click the same link 3 times, it will only be counted as 1 click.
Conversion Rate
- The Conversion Rate is determined by the number of submissions of an Online Actions form divided by number of recipients.
Read more about tracking email conversions
Amount Raised
- Amount Raised is determined by calculating the total amount raised from a contribution form linked in the email.
- Each link in your email contains tracking information that links the form submission back to the email that was sent. Because of this, the Amount Raised will only include people who made a donation from a link directly from the email sent.
Bounces
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The Bounces rate is determined by dividing the total number of bounces by the number of recipients.
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There are multiple types of bounces, which usually get grouped into Hard and Soft bounces.
Hard Bounces: Email addresses that can't be delivered due to a permanent failure (ie. the recipient's email server says the account no longer exists) are considered hard bounces. These email addresses are automatically set to Unsubscribed, as the email providers are saying emails will never be deliverable to that address.
Soft Bounces: Email addresses that can't be delivered due to a temporary failure (ie. the recipient's email server says the account has reached their inbox limit) are considered soft bounces. For some soft bounces - generic or unspecified, DNS failure, mailbox full - an address is unsubscribed after three bounces in a 30 day period.
Unsubscribes
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The Unsubscribes rate is the number of recipients that unsubscribed divided by the number of recipients. Unsubscribes can result from any of the following:
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Supporter unsubscribes after receiving an email
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Supporter unsubscribes through the Self Service Portal
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Hard Bounce - the email address doesn't exist
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Soft Bounce - repeated delivery attempts fail
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Bulk unsubscribe
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A member of your organization manually unsubscribes the email address
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Supporter requests a global unsubscribe from Bonterra
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How to: Manage email subscriptions for Targeted Email
Clicks Per Open
- Clicks Per Open are determined by dividing the number of unique clicks by the number of unique opens.
Total Conversions
- Total Conversions are the total number of forms submitted when accessed via Smart Links in an email.
Read more about Smart Links in the Targeted Email Classic editor
Read more about Smart Links in the Targeted Email Drag & Drop editor
Conversions Per Click
- The Conversions Per Click are the number of form submissions divided by the number of unique clicks.
Total Contributions
- Total Contributions are the total count of all donations made through a form linked to in the email by Smart Links.
Amount Raised Per Contribution
- The Amount Raised Per Contribution is the amount raised divided by the number of recipients that made a contribution from the email.
Unsubscribes Per Open
- Unsubscribes Per Open are the number of unsubscribes divided by the number of unique opens.
Spam Per Recipient
- Spams Per Recipient are the number of recipients reported spam complaints divided by the number of recipients.
- Note: Gmail does not provide email level feedback, so we are unable to include Gmail spam complaints in the calculations.
Email Scoring
- Email Scoring is our automatic process that improves your ability to reach your supporters and helps email providers like Gmail and Yahoo see your communications as legitimate.
- You can use these scores to improve your segmentation, excluding inactive email addresses which can lower your domain reputation with email providers.