Understanding the email campaign report

In this article

• Introduction
  • What is the email report
• Before getting started
  • Requirements
  • What counts as an open
  • What is a bounce
  • List of bounces
• Step-by-step
  • Viewing the report
  • Exporting the report
  • Adjusting the soft bounce removal criteria
• Frequently asked questions
  • Opens and engagement
  • Do hard bounces disable contacts?
  • Impact of bounces on email deliverability
  • Opens with inconsistent origin

 

The insights from the email report allow you to improve your communication strategies, ensure better delivery of your messages, and ultimately engage your target audience more effectively.

 

 

What is the email report?

In the world of digital marketing, understanding and optimizing interaction with your contacts through email is crucial. In this article, we'll explore how E-goi defines and measures email opens, handles bounces (rejected emails), and how you can export campaign reports for analysis.

 

 

Before getting started

 

Requirements

Before getting into the specifics of each functionality, it's crucial to ensure that your contact list is up to date and properly segmented. This not only optimizes the reach of your email campaigns but also reduces bounces and increases open rates.

 

What counts as an open

E-goi logs an email open when a contact who receives your email either:

• Views the images in your email
• Doesn't view images but clicks through any link in your email

This is similar to how ISPs (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.) measure engagement. The more your contacts view or click through your emails, the higher your engagement and sending reputation - which is key to have your sends landing right in the inbox!

So, always strive to send out mailings with timely, relevant content driving people to view images and click your links!

 

Optimizing for different mail services

While Gmail auto-displays all pics in an email, most other email clients (such as Outlook) only do so once the user allows it (by clicking a "Show images" button or similar when viewing the email).

Without pics, a placeholder text (aka ALT text) will be visible instead - use it to entice people to display images. Any clickthrough will also count as an open.

Apple Mail's Privacy Protection prevents open and clickthrough tracking in Apple Mail, but users must enable it - it is not on by default.

 

What is a bounce

• Soft bounces: Email addresses temporarily unavailable (e.g., mailbox full).
• Hard bounces: Email addresses permanently invalid or disabled.

 

How E-goi handles bounces

• Hard bounces are immediately marked as invalid.
• Soft bounces need to happen multiple times within a given interval for E-goi to mark the contact as invalid.

 

List of bounces

Bounces include a numeric code which helps understand why your email was not delivered. Find below a description for most standard codes, sorted by categories:

Invalid or expired email address

421      Serviço não disponível, encerrando canal de transmissão
450      Ação de e-mail solicitada não realizada: caixa de correio indisponível (por exemplo, caixa de correio ocupada)
451      Ação solicitada abortada: erro no processamento
550      Caixa de correio do usuário indisponível (como não encontrada)
551      O destinatário não é local para o servidor.
553      O comando foi abortado porque o nome da caixa de correio é inválido.
5.0.0    O endereço não existe
5.1.1    Endereço de caixa de correio de destino inválido
5.1.2    Endereço de sistema de destino inválido
5.1.3    Sintaxe do endereço de caixa de correio de destino inválida
5.1.4    Endereço de caixa de correio de destino ambíguo
5.1.5    Endereço de caixa de correio de destino válido
5.1.6    A caixa de correio foi movida
5.1.7    Sintaxe de endereço de caixa de correio do remetente inválido
5.1.8    Endereço do sistema do remetente inválido
5.2.0    Outro ou estado de caixa de correio não definido
5.2.1    Caixa de correio desativada, não aceitando mensagens
5.1.0    Outro estado de endereço
5.3.0    Outro ou estado de sistema de correio não definido
5.4.1    Nenhuma resposta do host
5.4.2    Conexão inválida
5.4.0    Outro ou estado de rede ou roteamento não definido
5.4.3    Falha do servidor de roteamento
5.4.4    Não foi possível rotear
5.4.7    Tempo de entrega expirado
5.5.0    Outro ou estado de protocolo não definido


Mailbox full

5.2.2    Caixa de correio cheia
5.3.1    Sistema de correio cheio


Message rejected (due to content, size or something else)

5.2.3    O comprimento da mensagem excede o limite administrativo.
5.2.4    Problema de expansão da lista de envio
5.3.4    Mensagem muito grande para o sistema
5.5.3    Muitos destinatários
5.7.0    Outro ou estado de segurança indefinido
5.7.1    Entrega não autorizada, mensagem recusada
5.7.2    Expansão da lista de envio proibida
5.7.7    Falha na integridade da mensagem


Miscellaneous issues in the mail server you sent the message to

452      Ação solicitada não realizada: armazenamento do sistema insuficiente
500      O servidor não reconheceu o comando devido a um erro de sintaxe.
501      Um erro de sintaxe foi encontrado nos argumentos do comando.
502      Este comando não está implementado.
503      O servidor encontrou uma sequência de comandos inválida.
504      Um parâmetro de comando não está implementado.
552      A ação foi abortada devido a uma alocação excessiva de armazenamento.
554      A transação falhou por algum motivo não especificado.
5.3.2    O sistema não está aceitando mensagens de rede
5.3.3    O sistema não é capaz de recursos selecionados
5.4.5    Congestionamento de rede
5.4.6    Loop de roteamento detectado
5.5.1    Comando inválido
5.5.2    Erro de sintaxe
5.5.4    Argumentos de comando inválidos
5.5.5    Versão incorreta do protocolo
5.6.0    Outro ou erro de mídia não definido
5.6.1    Mídia não suportada
5.6.2    Conversão requerida e proibida
5.6.3    Conversão requerida, mas não suportada
5.6.4    Conversion with loss performed
5.6.5    Conversion failed
5.7.3    Security conversion required but not possible
5.7.4    Security features not supported
5.7.5    Cryptographic failure
5.7.6    Cryptographic algorithm not supported

 

Additional bounce codes

Mail system administrators can create their own bounce codes. Major ISPs also have specific bounce codes:

• Gmail
• Yahoo
• Outlook.com
• AOL
• Comcast
• Cox

 

 

Step-by-step

 

Viewing the email report

 

1) Click on the Engage menu, go to Email, and click on View All.

2) Click on Report for the campaign you want to analyze.

 

 

Exporting the report

1) Click on the Engage menu, go to Email, and click on View All.

2) Click on Report for the campaign you want to export.

3) In the report, click on the Export button located in the upper right corner of the report to download an Excel or PDF document with your data.

 

 

Adjusting the criteria for automatic removal of soft bounces

The rules we use to mark the bounces on your lists are based on email marketing standards and best practices, but you can slightly adjust the way they work:

1) Go to the "Lists" menu, head to the list you want to edit and click on "Options".

2) The list settings page will be displayed. Click on the "Bounces" section and you should see the "Auto-remove soft-bouncing subscribers" option. Click on "Customise" and choose how aggressively you want E-goi to remove soft bounces in this list. The default is "Permissive", which keeps soft bounces in the list even if they bounce for a number of days. If you want them removed faster (in fewer days), change this to "Moderate" or "Aggressive".

3) Hit "Save" in the lower right corner to apply your changes to this list. Repeat these steps in any other list if necessary.

Keep in mind the above applies to soft bouces only - hard bounces will always be removed by E-goi the first time you email them. This can't be changed, as hitting bad addresses always makes a significant dent in your deliverability and sending reputation.

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Are email opens the only engagement indicator?

No, other complementary metrics should be considered, such as link clickthroughs, Smart SMS interactions, web push notifications, and website behavior analysis.

 

Can an engaged contact return a hard bounce?

Yes. Hard-bouncing contacts will have their email address disabled in E-goi. A little red dot will appear beside each email marked as invalid, which means E-goi won't try to email them anything anymore.

Those contacts will remain with active status on your list though and you can keep sending communications over to them using other channels, such as SMS.

 

Do bounces hurt my email deliverability?

Yes, a high bounce rate can seriously damage the sender's reputation and email delivery effectiveness.

 

I'm getting opens from contacts who told me they never opened or clicked my email

They probably have a spam filter which clicks through all emails to ensure they're safe.

This shouldn't affect your overall results for large sends (as not many people use these filters), but if you think your data may be skewed, you can weed false opens out:

• Include an "invisible" link in your email (make it tiny and transparent) so no one can see it but for a spam filter. Have the link lead to a special "are you human?" sign-up form on the off chance a human actually clicks it. When it's time to gauge your results, segment your contact list for people who clicked that link and consider disregarding them from your data.
• Go for roundabout ways to track results. Don't simply rely on opens! Smart SMS texts for non-openers, on-site messaging, web push notifications and E-goi's Track & Engage can all help you get a clearer view of your engagement across multiple channels.