Email Tracking and Metrics
Email data and metrics can help you determine the effectiveness of your emails and fine-tune future communications to improve their effectiveness. Marketing Cloud lets you view a range of email performance data.
Understanding Email Metrics
Metric | Description |
Messages Sent | The number of outbound email messages sent as part of a particular mailing. |
Messages Delivered | The number of sent email messages actually delivered to recipients’ inboxes. If they are not delivered, that means they’ve bounced (see below). |
Hard and Soft Bounces | A hard bounce is an email message that is undeliverable for permanent reasons, such as when it’s sent to an email address that is invalid or no longer exists. A soft bounce is an email message that is undeliverable for temporary reasons, such as when it's sent to a recipient whose mailbox is full. Ideally, you should track both. |
Messages Opened | The number of recipients who open your email to read it. |
Open Rate | Determines what percentage of recipients actually opens your email messages. To calculate open rate, divide the number of messages opened by the number of messages delivered.Open rate = # of messages opened / # of messages delivered |
Click Throughs | The number of times any recipient clicks on any trackable link within the email message. |
Click-Through Rate (CTR) | The number of click-throughs divided by the number of messages delivered.Click-through rate (CTR) = # of click-throughs / # of messages delivered |
Response or Conversion Rate | The number of desired responses, such as donations, divided by the number of messages delivered.Response rate = # of actions taken / # of messages delivered |
Unsubscribes | The number of individuals who have unsubscribed from your list. |
Unsubscribe Rate | The last critical item to track is the unsubscribe rate, or the number of unsubscribes divided by the number of messages delivered.Unsubscribe rate = unsubscribes / # of messages delivered |
How to View Email Tracking
- In Email Studio within Marketing Cloud, click on the Tracking tab.
- Click on Sends from the drop down menu.
- On the left side of the page, you’ll see a folder structure that contains tracking reports for emails in the given folder. In the middle pane, you’ll see the files within the selected folder.
- Click on the email file name to view the tracking report.
- In the tracking report under the Overview tab, you’ll see different performance cards:
- Summary shows the email’s Job ID number, subject line, date sent, total emails sent, and data extension used.
- Inbox activity displays total and unique numbers and rates for opens, clicks, and other engagement metrics.
- Send performance details delivery and bounce rates.
- Unengaged subscribers lists how people did not open the email and how many did not click in the email.
- Open performance shows the open rate and totals for delivered, opens, and unique opens.
- Forward to a friend activity shows how many people clicked the forward link (if available in the email template) and the resulting activity of the forwarded messages.
- In the tracking report under the Click Activity tab, the Email Overlay View shows a preview of the email message with each link and the percent of total clicks that the link received. As an example, the link highlighted by the red box received 3.6% of total clicks.
- In the tracking report under the Click Activity tab, click Link View to show a list of link alias names and their engagement metrics. Link alias names are generated when you create an email and make a link.