Want to analyze the performance of your communications or journeys?
Values and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the essential tools you need.
Discover how to interpret and calculate these indicators to monitor your campaign performance, highlight strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately make increasingly informed and data-driven decisions.
Understanding and calculating values and KPIs
To correctly interpret these metrics, it’s important to distinguish between values and KPIs:
Values: are absolute numbers that represent volumes or counts, indicating how many times something occurred, such as the number of emails sent, the number of messages opened, and the number of contacts who clicked a link.
These indicators tell you “how much” happened.KPIs (Key Performance Indicators): are percentage indicators that measure performance relative to a reference total, such as open rate, click rate, or conversion rate.
These indicators tell you “how well” your activities are performing, because they relate two data points.
Values answer the question “how many?” and indicate the volume of an activity, while KPIs answer the question “how well?” and indicate the performance in proportion to the total.
The key numbers: the values to track for messages
Email or SMS messages
Messages sent: messages sent by MagNews.
Messages received: number of messages successfully delivered to recipients (with no delivery errors or bounces).
Messages opened: number of messages opened at least once by recipients (an email is considered opened when images are downloaded or a link is clicked).
Messages clicked: number of messages that received at least one click on a contained link.
Messages converted: number of messages that triggered at least one tracked conversion.
Spam reports: number of contacts who reported the received email as spam. Only spam reports from mailbox providers that share this information are recorded (e.g., Yahoo!, Outlook.com).
Messages forwarded: number of emails that were forwarded to other recipients.
Messages with unsubscribe click: number of messages from which users unsubscribed.
Soft bounce / Hard bounce:
Soft bounce: temporary delivery errors (e.g., full mailbox).
Hard bounce: permanent delivery failure (e.g., invalid address or domain).
Real performance: the KPIs to monitor for messages
How are your messages performing?
Delivery rate: measures the percentage of messages sent that were not bounced (no negative response from recipient providers).
How to calculate it: subtract the number of undelivered messages (bounces) from the total sent, divide by the total sent, then multiply by 100.Bounce rate: measures the percentage of sent messages that were not delivered due to errors.
How to calculate it: sum soft and hard bounces, divide by the number of messages sent, then multiply by 100.Open rate: measures the percentage of delivered messages that were opened at least once.
How to calculate it: divide the number of opened messages by the number of delivered messages, then multiply by 100.Click rate: measures the percentage of messages that received at least one click.
How to calculate it: divide the number of clicked messages by the number of delivered messages, then multiply by 100.Click-to-open rate: measures the percentage of opened messages that received at least one click.
How to calculate it: divide the number of clicked messages by the number of opened messages, then multiply by 100.Conversion rate: measures the percentage of delivered messages that triggered at least one conversion.
How to calculate it: divide the number of converted messages by the number of delivered messages, then multiply by 100.
Who did what: contact-related values
What actions did your recipients take?
Recipients: total number of contacts to whom at least one message was sent.
Reached: contacts who received at least one communication without bounces.
Opened: contacts who opened the message at least once.
Clicked: contacts who clicked at least once on content (clicks on service links are not counted).
Converted: contacts who triggered at least one conversion.
Reported spam: contacts who marked the email as spam.
Forwarded: contacts who forwarded the message to other recipients.
Behavioral KPIs to monitor on contacts
How effective were your messages?
Reached rate: measures the percentage of recipients who received at least one message.
How to calculate it: divide the number of recipients reached by the total recipients and multiply by 100.Openers rate: measures the percentage of recipients who received and opened a message at least once.
How to calculate it: divide the number of openers by the number of reached recipients and multiply by 100.Clickers rate: measures the percentage of recipients who clicked at least once.
How to calculate it: divide the number of clickers by the number of reached recipients and multiply by 100.Clickers-to-openers rate: measures the percentage of recipients who clicked at least once among those who opened.
How to calculate it: divide the number of clickers by the number of openers and multiply by 100.Conversion rate: measures the percentage of recipients who converted at least once.
How to calculate it: divide the number of converters by the number of recipients reached and multiply by 100.
Numbers alone are not enough. The key is knowing what to look at, how to interpret it, and which actions to take. With these indicators, you can understand what works, what doesn’t, and how to optimize every communication.
Ready to use these values and KPIs to optimize your strategies, improve performance, and reach your marketing goals successfully?