Reading reports when the consent policy is active
When the open tracking consent policy is active, the way Flexmail calculates and displays open rates changes. This article explains how to read the figures in your reports and what changes for workflows and segments that rely on opens.
For more details on the consent policy itself, see Tracking settings.
What changes?
While the policy is inactive, Flexmail calculates the open rate as before: unique opens divided by delivered emails. Once the policy is active, this calculation is based on tracked recipients: delivered contacts who received a tracking pixel. These are the contacts with consent set to "Yes". A bounced email never counts. Which calculation applies to a campaign depends on the policy status at the moment the campaign was sent.
Contacts without consent do not receive a pixel, so Flexmail has no open data for them. They appear as "Not measured" and are never counted as "not opened" or as zero opens.
This makes the open rate more reliable for the part of your audience that you can measure, and it may end up higher or lower than before. A drop after activation is normal: existing contacts start at "Not set" and are only measured once they say "Yes". See How do I collect open tracking consent?.
There is one exception that also applies when the policy is inactive. A contact with an explicit "No" never receives a tracking pixel, so Flexmail can never record an open for that contact. Those contacts are therefore not included in the open rate even under an inactive policy. They are not shown separately in a "Tracked" figure in that case.
If open tracking itself is turned off, Flexmail displays "Not available" for the open rate of every campaign. This applies to all your campaigns, including emails that are already in an inbox.
Three figures per campaign
In every campaign report for a campaign sent while the policy was active, you see three key metrics side by side:
| Figure | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Delivered | All contacts to whom the campaign was delivered |
| Tracked recipients | Delivered contacts who received a tracking pixel |
| Open rate (tracked recipients) | Unique opens divided by tracked recipients |
"Not available" or 0%?
If a campaign has no tracked recipients, for example because no emails were delivered or because no one gave consent, Flexmail displays "Not available" instead of 0%. A figure of 0% means there is at least one tracked recipient and no one opened. "Not available" means no open data exists. Flexmail displays this the same way across all report screens so you cannot confuse it with an actual 0%.
Where do you find what?
Campaign overview on the homepage
If the policy is active and all campaigns in the selected period were sent while it was active, the open rate ring displays the open rate across tracked recipients, with the label "Open rate (tracked recipients)". Below the ring, it displays "x tracked out of y total recipients", instead of the number of opened emails. If there are no tracked recipients in the entire period, the ring displays "Not available".
If the period also includes campaigns from before the activation, the ring works differently. See Periods with campaigns from before the activation.
The third ring is now called "Click rate".
Campaign reports: list view
- The Open rate tile counts all campaigns you have filtered. If the policy is active and all those campaigns were sent while it was active, it is labelled "Open rate (tracked recipients)".
- In the Campaign details table, an additional column labelled "Tracked" appears immediately after "Sent". It shows the number of tracked recipients per campaign.
- The "Open %" column uses the campaign basis. If you switch the table between "%" and "#", the same basis applies to the count.
- If a campaign has no tracked recipients, or if open tracking is turned off, the row displays "Not available" in the "Open %" column.
- A campaign sent while the policy was inactive shows nothing in the "Tracked" column and displays its original open rate in "Open %".
Campaign report: detail page and PDF
On the Overview tab, you find:
- "Tracked recipients" immediately after "Delivered"
- "Unique opens", "Total opens", and the "Opened" slice in the donut chart, calculated as a percentage of tracked recipients
- "Not opened": tracked recipients who did not open the email
- "Not measured": recipients without consent, for whom no open data exists
The donut chart (and any comparable chart in the PDF report) has three segments in three colours: Opened, Not opened, and Not measured. Flexmail never combines "Not measured" with "Not opened".
Email client, operating system, and rendering engine
These breakdowns come entirely from the tracking pixel: Flexmail only detects the client, operating system, and rendering engine when the pixel loads. With an active policy, they only cover tracked recipients. They display the same "Tracked recipients" count or the same percentage basis, so you do not read them as an overview of your entire delivered audience.
With an inactive policy, or when open tracking is off, these breakdowns remain as they were.
Exports, API, and reseller overview
The same basis (tracked recipients), the same distinction between "Not measured" and "Not opened", and the same "Not available" status apply wherever the open rate is displayed or exported: the PDF report, campaign and contact exports, the API, and the reseller overview.
Campaigns from before the activation
A campaign sent while the policy was inactive does not show a "Tracked recipients" figure. The original open rate remains, calculated across all delivered recipients, with the label "Data predates the open tracking consent policy".
Do not compare those figures directly with campaigns sent after the activation. They are calculated differently and cover a different audience.
Upon activation, Flexmail removes individual opens for contacts with an explicit "No". Aggregated figures at campaign level remain available.
Support tip: an open rate drop after activation can also have a reason other than contacts dropping out. Opens that Flexmail previously inferred from clicks are no longer counted for contacts who do not receive a pixel. As a result, the open rate can even decrease for contacts who did grant consent.
Periods with campaigns from before the activation
On the homepage and on the campaign reports dashboard, you select a period or filter campaigns. If that selection includes campaigns sent while the policy was inactive, Flexmail calculates each campaign on its own basis:
- a campaign from when the policy was inactive counts with its delivered recipients, as before
- a campaign from when the policy was active counts with its tracked recipients
The open rate across the selection is the total number of unique opens divided by the sum of those bases. Because this mixes two groups, the ring or tile is labelled "Open rate" instead of "Open rate (tracked recipients)". Below the ring, the message "Includes campaigns sent while the consent policy was inactive." replaces "x tracked out of y total recipients". For the tile, the same message appears behind the info icon.
Example
You activate the policy on 1 September and select the period from 1 August to 30 September.
| Campaign | Sent | Basis | Unique opens |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | August | 10,000 delivered | 2,500 |
| B | August | 8,000 delivered | 1,600 |
| C | September | 3,000 tracked | 900 |
The open rate across the period is (2,500 + 1,600 + 900) divided by (10,000 + 8,000 + 3,000), which is 23.8%. If you select September only, you see "Open rate (tracked recipients)" at 30%.
For a clean comparison, choose a period that starts entirely after the activation date.
CTOR: why the figure is not comparable
CTOR (click-to-open rate) divides clicks by opens. With an active policy, those two figures are not based on the same group: clicks count for all recipients, while opens only count for tracked recipients. As a result, the CTOR can end up higher than it would be if both figures covered the same recipients. It is also not comparable with periods without an active policy.
The same explanation appears wherever CTOR is shown:
- The "Click to open rate" tile and the "CTOR %" column on the campaign reports dashboard have an info icon. Hovering over or tapping it reveals the explanation.
- On the campaign detail page, the same explanation accompanies the click-to-open figure.
- In the PDF report, the explanation appears as text next to the metric.
- The explanation also appears when open tracking is turned off, because the same discrepancy occurs then.
Click rate as the primary metric
Click rate does not depend on open tracking consent. The figure applies to all recipients. You can therefore use it to compare campaigns, even when your open rate only covers part of your audience.
The formula is the same everywhere: unique clicks divided by delivered emails.
- On the homepage, the third ring is now called "Click rate" (previously "CTO rate"). Below the ring, it says "x clicked". The click-to-open rate is no longer on the homepage. You can still find it on the campaign reports dashboard and on the campaign detail page.
- On the campaign reports dashboard, the tiles remain in the same order: "Delivery rate", "Open rate", "Click rate", "Click to open rate".
- On the campaign detail page, the "Clicks" tile is now called "Click rate". It shows unique clicks as a percentage of delivered emails. The existing ratio "Unique clicks / unique opens" (the click-to-open rate) remains further down on the Overview tab, accompanied by the explanation above.
Workflows and segments based on opens
Flexmail does not register an open for a contact without consent, because that contact does not receive a tracking pixel. This is existing behaviour. Flexmail now displays this clearly in the workflow builder and the segment builder.
A warning never prevents you from saving or activating. Conditions and triggers based on clicks are unaffected and show no warning.
Workflows with an open trigger
With an active policy, a workflow using the trigger "Has opened the message" only starts for contacts with consent set to "Yes". For other contacts, there is no open, so the trigger never fires.
When the policy is active, the workflow builder displays this warning:
"This workflow triggers on email opens. Open data is only available for contacts with open tracking consent. Contacts without consent do not trigger this flow."
If open tracking is turned off, the builder shows a warning with a different reason: "Open tracking is currently turned off for your account, so this trigger fires for no one."
A click-based or time-based trigger works for all contacts. Choose one of those if you want the workflow to start for your entire audience.
Segments with an open condition
On the segment detail page, Flexmail displays a warning. The text depends on the condition type:
Positive condition, such as "has opened"
Contacts without consent have no open data and are not in the segment.
"This segment uses email opens as part of its conditions. Open data is only available for contacts with open tracking consent. Contacts without consent are excluded from this segment."
Negative condition, such as "has not opened"
A contact without consent has no opens and therefore meets the condition. The segment includes these contacts, even though nothing was measured for them.
"This segment uses 'has not opened' as part of its conditions. A contact without open tracking consent has no open data and therefore meets this condition. Contacts without consent are included in this segment, not excluded."
If open tracking is turned off, Flexmail displays the same warnings with the reason that open tracking is currently turned off for your account.
Next steps
- Tracking settings: overview of settings and their combinations
- How do I collect open tracking consent?: increase the number of contacts you can measure
Related articles
Background information
Step-by-step guidance