Campaign reports

After sending a campaign, Flexmail automatically generates a detailed report. This article explains what you find in the campaign reports dashboard, how to navigate an individual campaign report, and how to read your results in a way that helps you improve over time.

Prerequisites

• You have sent at least one campaign.
• Test campaigns and archived campaigns do not appear in the campaign reports dashboard table.

The campaign reporting dashboard

Go to Campaigns, then Campaign reports to open the dashboard. By default, it shows all campaigns from the past 30 days.

Key metrics (KPIs)

Eight performance indicators appear at the top of the dashboard: delivery rate, open rate, click rate, click-to-open ratio (CTOR), soft bounce rate, hard bounce rate, spam complaint rate, and unsubscribe rate. Metrics that require attention are visually highlighted. A spam complaint rate above 0.1% or an unsubscribe rate above 1.5% appears in red.

The campaign table

Below the KPIs, a table lists each campaign with its performance metrics. Click a campaign name to open its full report. Switch between percentages and absolute numbers using the icon in the top right, and sort by any column by clicking the column header.

Filtering the dashboard

Adjust the time period using the period selector at the top, or use the filter options to narrow results by category, segment, or campaign type. Active filters appear at the top of the dashboard and can be removed individually. Use the search bar to find a specific campaign by name.

The individual campaign report

Click a campaign name in the dashboard to open its full report.

Overview

Delivery, open, and click statistics. Click the arrow next to a metric to see more detail, export the data, or start a new campaign from the same recipients.

Link overview

Every tracked link in your campaign, with the number of clicks per link. Click the cogwheel icon next to a link to see which specific contacts clicked it.

Link map

A visual preview of your message with click percentages across each link. Useful for seeing at a glance which parts of your email generated the most engagement.

Deliveries

Returned emails broken down by bounce type and bounce code, with explanations for each code. You can export this data for further analysis.

Email clients and operating systems

Shows which email clients and devices your contacts used to read the campaign. Use this to decide which clients to prioritise when testing your templates.

Ratios

Compares your open rate, bounce rate, and click rate with the average across all campaigns in your account. Useful for understanding whether a specific campaign performed better or worse than your usual baseline.

AB testing

If you ran an AB test, the results appear here, showing the performance of each variant and which one was declared the winner.

PDF reporting

Generate and download a PDF summary of the campaign. Configure which data is included in PDF reports via Settings > PDF reporting.

How to read your results

Open rate

Your open rate reflects the effectiveness of your subject line and sender name, the two things contacts see before deciding whether to open. Compare it with your account average in the Ratios section. Keep in mind that open tracking relies on a tiny tracking pixel that only fires when a recipient loads images. Contacts who read your email with images disabled do not register as opens, even if they read every word.

Open tracking consent

When the open tracking consent policy is active, Flexmail calculates the open rate across tracked recipients: delivered contacts who have consent set to "Yes" and therefore received a tracking pixel. Contacts without consent appear as "Not measured" rather than "Unopened". If a campaign has no tracked recipients, Flexmail displays "Not available" instead of 0%. A campaign sent before activating the policy retains its original open rate. See Reading reporting when the consent policy is active for all screens and numbers.

Click rate and CTOR

Click rate tells you how many of your delivered emails led to at least one click. CTOR removes the influence of subject line performance and tells you how compelling your content was for the people who actually opened. A high open rate with a low CTOR means the subject line was appealing but the content fell short. A low open rate with a high CTOR means the content is strong, so work on getting more opens first.

The click rate is independent of open tracking consent and applies to all recipients: unique clicks divided by delivered emails. Flexmail uses the same formula everywhere. On the start page and on the campaign detail page, this metric is called "Click rate".

With an active policy, CTOR divides clicks from all recipients by opens from the tracked segment. Because these are two different groups, CTOR cannot be compared to periods without an active policy and may turn out higher than when both metrics covered the same recipients. The same explanation appears next to the info icon beside CTOR in the dashboard.

Bounces

Hard bounces (codes starting with 5) indicate permanent errors, meaning the address does not exist or is permanently blocked. Flexmail automatically adds addresses returning a 5.1.1 code to your Blacklist. For other hard bounce codes, three consecutive bounces trigger a Blacklist entry. Soft bounces (codes starting with 4) are temporary, such as a full inbox or a temporarily unreachable server. Flexmail automatically retries these.

Spam complaints

Flexmail records a complaint when a contact clicks "This is spam" in their email client. Flexmail places that address on the Blacklist, and you cannot reactivate it without contacting support.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Comparing open rates across very different campaign types. A newsletter and a promotional flash sale naturally have different open rates. Compare like with like.
• Treating the open rate as your primary success metric. Open tracking is imprecise because image blocking affects it. Click rate and CTOR are more reliable indicators of actual engagement.
• Failing to act on high bounce or complaint rates. A hard bounce rate rising over several campaigns signals a list quality issue. A spam complaint rate above 0.1% affects inbox placement for your entire account.
• Ignoring the email clients report. If 60% of your contacts read on mobile and your template is not mobile-optimised, your click rate will suffer. This report tells you where to focus your template tests.

GDPR considerations

Next steps

• After reviewing your report, use the option "Start a new campaign from these recipients" to follow up with contacts who clicked or did not open.
• Export your bounce data and clean up hard bounces in your account.
• Use the email clients report to decide which clients to prioritise in your next template test.
• If you ran an AB test, note the winning variant and apply what you learned to your next campaign.