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Understanding Deliverability Stats
Your campaign stats tell you more than just how many people opened an email. They reveal the health of your list, the quality of your content, and whether your sending reputation is heading in the right direction. This guide explains what each metric means and what to do when something looks off.
Key metrics explained
| Metric | What it means | Healthy range |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery rate | Percentage of emails accepted by the recipient's mail server | 98%+ |
| Open rate | Percentage of delivered emails opened at least once | 20–40% for engaged lists |
| Click rate | Percentage of delivered emails where at least one link was clicked | 2–5% typical |
| Bounce rate | Percentage of emails that could not be delivered | Under 2% |
| Unsubscribe rate | Percentage of recipients who unsubscribed after this campaign | Under 0.5% |
| Complaint rate | Percentage who marked the email as spam | Under 0.1% |
Open rate and Apple MPP
Since Apple introduced Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) in 2021, open rates have become less reliable. MPP pre-fetches email content for Apple Mail users, recording an open even if the person never actually read the email. This inflates open rates — sometimes significantly.
Treat open rates as a directional signal rather than an absolute number. A sudden drop in open rate is still meaningful (something changed). A consistently high open rate may include a large proportion of MPP-triggered opens.
Click rate is a more reliable engagement signal because it requires a real human action.
Hard vs soft bounces
Hard bounce
The email address does not exist or the domain is not configured to receive email. Aledamail automatically suppresses hard-bounced addresses — they will not receive future campaigns. Hard bounces above 2% indicate a list quality problem: old data, typos at signup, or purchased lists.
Soft bounce
The address exists but could not receive email at this time — the inbox is full, the server was temporarily unavailable, or the message was too large. Aledamail retries soft bounces automatically. After 5 consecutive soft bounces from the same address, it is suppressed.
Complaint rate
A complaint is recorded when someone clicks "Mark as spam" in their email client. This is the most damaging signal for your sending reputation. Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook all monitor complaint rates and use them to determine inbox vs spam placement.
If your complaint rate climbs above 0.08%, investigate immediately. Common causes are sending to old or purchased lists, sending too frequently, or a mismatch between what subscribers expected when they signed up and what you are actually sending.
Reading the tracking log
The tracking log (available per campaign under Reports → Tracking Log) shows every email send with its delivery status, open flag, and click flag. You can export it as a CSV for analysis. The export includes a cohort column if you use subscriber custom fields for segmentation.
What to do when stats look bad
Low open rate (under 15%)
- Check your subject lines — are they specific and relevant?
- Check send timing — are you sending when your audience is active?
- Segment your list — are you sending the same email to everyone regardless of interest?
- Consider a re-engagement campaign for subscribers who have not opened in 90+ days, then suppress the non-responders.
High bounce rate (over 2%)
- Verify your list before importing — use an email verification service.
- Remove hard-bounced addresses immediately (Aledamail does this automatically).
- Review your signup process — are you collecting email addresses in a way that attracts typos or fake addresses?
High complaint rate (over 0.05%)
- Make your unsubscribe link prominent — if people cannot find it, they report spam instead.
- Review your list source — purchased or scraped lists always produce high complaints.
- Reduce send frequency — too many emails is the most common complaint trigger.
- Set clear expectations at signup — tell people exactly what they will receive and how often.