Campaign Metrics: Understanding Each Number

In the campaign dashboard, you see numbers: sent, delivered, opened, clicked, replied, bounce. Without understanding what each metric means and what values are normal, it's impossible to understand whether the campaign is going well or something needs to be changed.

Sent

The number of emails sent from Postigo to the SMTP server. This doesn't mean they were delivered – it means an attempt to send was made. Sent = Delivered + Bounced + Failed.

Delivered

The recipient's SMTP server accepted the email without an error. This doesn't mean the email is in the inbox – it could be in the spam folder. Delivery rate = Delivered / Sent. Normal for cold-email: 95-99%. Less than 95% is a serious problem with the SMTP or the database.

Open rate

The percentage of recipients who opened the email. Calculated using a 1×1 pixel in the HTML body of the email – when the recipient opens the email and loads the images, the pixel informs Postigo about the opening.

Normal for cold-email: 20-40%. Less than 15% is a problem with the subject line or ending up in spam. More than 50% is excellent, or your recipients have image auto-loading enabled (Apple Mail).

Guide: the best open rates are shown by subject lines of 4-7 words, without CAPS, without $. Personalization via {{name}} gives +5-10% to the open rate.

Click rate (CTR)

The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link in the email. The first cold email should not contain links – therefore, the CTR in the first campaign is usually 0%. CTR makes sense to calculate in follow-up emails.

Normal for follow-up: 2-8%. Depends on the topic and offer.

Reply rate

The percentage of recipients who replied. The most important metric for cold-email – the open rate shows that the subject line is working, but it is the reply that means you have received a real contact.

Normal: 1-5%. 1-2% is low, you need to change your approach. 3-5% is good. More than 5% is excellent, most likely you have hit a very targeted database. Postigo calculates the reply rate automatically from IMAP-sync responses.

Bounce rate

The percentage of emails that were returned as undeliverable. Divided into:

• Hard bounce – the address does not exist (550, 553). The worst – each hard bounce hits the SMTP reputation
• Soft bounce – temporary problem (overflow, server down, 421/450). Postigo will automatically retry in a few hours

Normal: bounce rate < 2%. More than 5% is a stop-cock, the SMTP reputation will drop quickly. Run the database through an email-validator before the next mailing.

Funnel as a whole

Sent (1000) → Delivered (980, 98%) → Opened (290, 29%) → Replied (32, 3.3%) → Positive replies (10, 31% of replies).

Each step is a loss. Knowing the percentages helps to understand where it is "leaking": low delivery – bad SMTP or database; low open – weak subject line; low reply – problem in the body; low positive – mismatch between the offer and the target audience.