Email Measurement
Diagnosing weak email campaigns
Find the first weak step in an email campaign, from recipient selection and delivery through clicks, page visits and completed actions.
Start with the action the campaign was meant to prompt. Then find the first step where the evidence weakens. A poor sales result alone does not identify a subject-line problem; the audience, delivery, message, destination, offer or measurement may need attention.
Reconstruct the send
Keep the final email, recipient rule, exclusions, send date, intended destination and reporting window together. Name the intended action. If bookings cannot be reliably connected to the campaign, report an earlier observable action, such as recorded clicks on the booking link.
Compare the result with an earlier send only when its audience, purpose and counting rules are sufficiently similar. Show counts beside rates, so a change in the people reached does not disappear inside a percentage.
Key Email Performance Indicators
- Deliveries
- Total messages sent successfully
- Bounces
- Messages rejected by recipient servers
- Opens (recorded)
- Remote content loaded – not necessarily read
- Clicks on Target Link
- Measured per platform – may differ from analytics
Find the first weak step
| Observation | First check |
|---|---|
| More bounces | Compare recipient sources, sending routes and available receiver replies. |
| Many recorded opens but few clicks on the intended link | Check tracking, audience fit, the offer and the route to act. |
| Link clicks but few recorded page visits | Check redirects, page access and analytics collection. |
| Page visits but few completed actions | Check whether the page fulfils the email’s promise and where the journey stops. |
| An unexpectedly poor result for one group | Compare the planned audience with the final recipient selection. |
These patterns guide investigation; none proves a cause. A platform’s successful-delivery count does not establish inbox placement.
Recorded opens do not prove reading: blocked images can hide an open, while Apple’s Protect Mail Activity can load remote content without engagement. Automated security activity can also affect opens and clicks. Check the platform’s tracking and filtering settings before interpreting a change.
Apple says Protect Mail Activity routes remote content through two separate relays. One knows the recipient’s IP address but not the email content; the other knows the content but not the IP address. Senders cannot use the recipient’s IP address as a unique identifier to connect activity across websites or apps to build a profile.
Follow the relevant action
Read the subject, preview text, opening and main action as one promise. Would an eligible recipient understand the offer and what happens after the click? If an email says “Book a place” but opens a general events page, inspect both the wording and destination.
Review clicks on the link that mattered, rather than all links combined. A recorded click does not prove the page loaded or that a person bought.
Where web analytics is configured, compare tagged traffic with the landing-page report. Check completed actions in the booking or order system under a stated window and status rule. Keep each system’s attributed figures separate.
Treat open data as one supporting measure, not a verdict. Campaign Monitor advises assessing multiple metrics against the campaign’s goals; an open-rate change alone should not determine whether the campaign succeeded or what to change next.
Email Metrics: What to Track and Why
- Open Rate
- Supporting measure only – not proof of engagement
- Click Rate on Intended Link
- More reliable than total clicks – focus on key action link
- Page Visits (via Analytics)
- Confirm tracking is active and data is captured correctly
- Completed Actions
- Check booking or order system under agreed rules and time window
Check recipients and record the decision
Compare the planned audience with the final rule and available sent records. A broad condition, stale field or missing exclusion can make an otherwise clear message irrelevant. If the wrong people received it, assess recipient impact and check current permission before another commercial send.
Write the conclusion as an observation, possible explanations and next check. For example: “The platform recorded workshop-link clicks, but the booking system shows few completed bookings in the agreed period. We will check the page journey and measurement before changing the email.” Then correct the fault the evidence supports and retain the original result for comparison.
In this guide
- High opens but few clicks: where to look firstCheck what open and click reports count, then review the email’s promise, intended link, action and audience fit.
- Strong clicks but no sales: checking the destination pageTrace a recorded email click through the landing page and checkout, checking offer consistency, page access and purchase measurement.
- Investigating a campaign sent to the wrong segmentContain a wrong-segment email send, identify affected recipients, assess impact and trace the audience rule that failed.
- Knowing when a newsletter format needs to changeDecide whether weak newsletter results point to a recurring format problem, then revise and assess the section causing it.
