Analytics

Track campaign performance with real-time analytics. Monitor opens, clicks, bounces, and more to optimize your email marketing.

Note
Email Tracking Disclosure: Opens are tracked with a tracking pixel and clicks with link redirects. Depending on how your workspace is set up, either GoodPostal or your email sending service serves those, as described under Open Tracking below. Recipients can opt out via the unsubscribe link included in every email. As a sender, you are responsible for disclosing tracking practices to your recipients in accordance with applicable privacy laws.

Dashboard Overview

The campaign analytics dashboard shows key metrics at a glance. Each campaign has its own analytics page accessible from the campaign detail view.

Key Metrics

NameTypeRequiredDescription
SentnumberNoTotal emails dispatched to recipients
DeliverednumberNoEmails accepted by the recipient mail server
OpensnumberNoUnique recipients who opened the email, measured by a tracking pixel
ClicksnumberNoUnique recipients who clicked at least one link
BouncesnumberNoEmails that could not be delivered (hard or soft bounce)
ComplaintsnumberNoRecipients who marked the email as spam
UnsubscribesnumberNoRecipients who clicked the unsubscribe link

Open Tracking

Opens are measured with a tiny invisible tracking pixel in each email. When a recipient loads images, the pixel is requested and the open is recorded. Who serves that pixel depends on your setup:

  • With a verified tracking domain (or a generic SMTP sender), GoodPostal adds the pixel itself and serves it from your own tracking domain, so the request never touches a third party's domain.
  • Without one, your email sending service handles tracking natively on its own domain and reports each open to GoodPostal by webhook. GoodPostal adds no pixel of its own in this mode.

Either way the numbers land in the same dashboard. See Tracking Domain for which services require one and how to set yours up.

Note
Open tracking has limitations. Some email clients block images by default, and Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-fetches images. This means open rates may be inflated or understated depending on your audience.

Click Tracking

Click tracking follows the same split as open tracking. When GoodPostal owns tracking, meaning you have a verified tracking domain or a generic SMTP sender, it rewrites the links in your campaign, records the click, and redirects the recipient to the original destination. Otherwise your sending service wraps the links itself and reports each click to GoodPostal by webhook.

The most-clicked-links report works in both cases, so you can see which links drew the most interest either way.

Bounce Handling

Bounces are reported by your email sending service via webhooks. GoodPostal categorizes them into two types:

  • Hard bounce - Permanent delivery failure (e.g., address does not exist). The contact is automatically unsubscribed to protect your sender reputation.
  • Soft bounce - Temporary delivery failure (e.g., mailbox full). A single soft bounce does not unsubscribe anyone, but a contact who accumulates 3 bounces is unsubscribed automatically to protect your sender reputation.
Warning
High bounce rates damage your sender reputation. Regularly clean your contact lists by removing invalid addresses and monitoring bounce rates after each campaign.

Complaint Tracking

When a recipient marks your email as spam, the complaint is reported through your sending service's webhook. GoodPostal automatically unsubscribes the contact to prevent future sends.

A complaint rate above 0.1% is a serious warning sign. If this happens, review your sending practices, list quality, and content relevance.

Rate Calculations

  • Delivery rate = (delivered / sent) x 100
  • Open rate = (unique opens / delivered) x 100
  • Click rate = (unique clicks / delivered) x 100
  • Bounce rate = (bounces / sent) x 100
  • Unsubscribe rate = (unsubscribes / delivered) x 100
  • Complaint rate = (complaints / delivered) x 100

Industry Benchmarks

Typical email marketing benchmarks vary by industry. As a general guide:

  • Open rate: 20-30% (varies widely; use as a trend indicator)
  • Click rate: 2-5%
  • Bounce rate: Below 2%
  • Complaint rate: Below 0.1%
Tip
Focus on trends rather than absolute numbers. If your open rate increases from 18% to 25% across campaigns, your content and targeting are improving regardless of industry averages.

Webhook Events

Analytics data is powered by webhook events from your email sending service. Make sure webhooks are properly configured to get accurate tracking. See the webhooks guide for setup instructions.

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