Reading Your Reports
After you send a campaign, open its Report to see how it performed. The report title includes the campaign subject.
Who it was sent to
Under the title, Sent to names the groups and segments the campaign went to and any it left out, with the number of recipients when it was sent. For example: "Sent to: Providers + Board, excluding Unengaged (120 recipients when sent)", or "Sent to: All active contacts".
These are the names at the time of sending. Renaming or deleting a group or segment later doesn't change the report. Campaigns sent before Postak kept this history (before v0.14.0) that went to everyone say "Audience not recorded".
The numbers
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sent | How many emails were successfully handed to the mail service. |
| Opened | How many recipients opened the email (and the open rate %). |
| Clicked | How many recipients clicked a link (and the click rate %). |
| Unsubscribed | How many opted out from this campaign (and the unsubscribe rate %). |
| Bounced | Emails the receiving server permanently refused, for example because the address doesn't exist (and the bounce rate %). |
| Complaints | Recipients who marked the email as spam. |
| Failed | Emails the system could not hand to the mail service. |
Select Refresh to pull the latest numbers. Opens, clicks, bounces, and complaints arrive over time.
If Track opens and clicks was off for the campaign, the report says so at the top, and opens and clicks stay at 0. See Tracking opens and clicks.
While a campaign is sending
The report shows how many emails are still waiting to send and refreshes itself every few seconds. Emails that hit a temporary problem are retried automatically.
Not delivered
If some emails couldn't be delivered, the report lists the most recent ones with the reason, usually the mail server's own message (for example "550 No such user"), or "the contact is no longer subscribed" for people who unsubscribed while the campaign was sending.
About bounces and complaints
- They're reported when the campaign was sent through Amazon SES (SMTP or API) and your administrator has turned on SES notifications. With plain SMTP, SendGrid, Mailgun, or Postmark, or before notifications are set up, they stay at 0.
- Only hard bounces count. Temporary problems, such as a full mailbox, are retried by the mail service and aren't counted.
- Contacts that bounce or complain are marked Bounced or Complained and won't be emailed again. See Managing Contacts.
A/B tests
For an A/B test, the report has an A/B test section after the numbers above. A line at the top says where the test is:
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sending to the test group (20 % of recipients). | The test emails are going out. |
| Test finished. The winner is picked by open rate at … | Postak picks the winner automatically at that time. |
| Waiting for you to pick the winner. | You chose to pick the winner yourself. |
| Variant B won (picked automatically by open rate) on … It went to the other 400 recipients. | The winner was chosen ("picked by you" if you chose it). |
| The audience was empty, so no test ran. | Nobody matched the audience when the campaign was sent. |
The table has one row per variant: its Subject, Recipients, Sent, Opened, Open rate, Clicked, and Click rate. The winning row is marked Winner. The Remainder line below the table has the same numbers for the people who get the winner.
While there is no winner, each row has a Pick … as winner button. Select it and confirm ("Send variant B to the remaining 400 recipients?") to send that variant to the remainder straight away. The winner can't be changed afterwards. If someone else (or Postak) has just chosen one, you'll see "A winner has already been chosen."
The numbers keep changing after the winner is chosen, as more people open and click. Rates are counted against the emails each variant has sent.
In the Recipients table further down, a Variant column shows which variant each person in the test group got. People in the remainder show Waiting until there is a winner, then the winner, for example "B (winner)".
Web view
For a campaign that is sending or sent, the Web view box lets you switch the public online copy on or off. When it's on, the report shows the link (it opens in a new tab). When it's off, the link shows a "not available" page. See Web view.
Activity
The Opens and clicks over time chart shows when people opened the email and clicked its links: by hour for the first two days after sending, then by day. Each person's first open counts once; every click counts. Select Show as table under the chart to read the same numbers as a table.
Before the campaign is sent, this section says activity will appear once it has been sent.
Links
The Links table lists every tracked link in the email with:
- Clicks: every click on the link, including repeat clicks by the same person.
- People: how many different recipients clicked it.
The most-clicked links are listed first. A campaign sent without tracking has no tracked links.
Recipients
The Recipients table shows each person the campaign was sent to, with when the email was sent, opened, and clicked, and any problem (bounced, marked as spam, unsubscribed, or not delivered with the reason).
Use Show to narrow the list: Sent, Opened, Clicked, Bounced, Marked as spam, Unsubscribed, Not delivered, or Waiting to send. The list shows 25 people per page; use Previous and Next to move between pages.
Select Download CSV to save the list as a spreadsheet file. The download uses the current Show filter, and has one row per recipient with the email, each date, and any delivery error.
Project trend
The project's Overview page has a Last 14 days chart of emails sent, opened, and clicked per day across all campaigns, with a Show as table option. It's updated once a day, so today's numbers may appear tomorrow. Days with no activity show as 0.
A note on accuracy
Open and click tracking is directional, not exact:
- Opens are counted with a tiny invisible image. Some email apps block images or pre-load them, so the real number can be higher or lower.
- Clicks are tracked by routing links through Postak before sending people to the destination.
Every email platform has these limitations. Use the trends over time rather than treating a single number as exact.
Using the results
- A healthy open rate suggests good subject lines, preview text, and sender reputation.
- A healthy click rate suggests engaging content and clear calls to action. The Links table shows which ones worked.
- Rising unsubscribes are a signal to review frequency or relevance.
- A bounce rate above about 2% or any steady stream of complaints hurts deliverability. Clean old lists and only email people who asked to hear from you.