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BillionMail Campaign Analytics: Open, Click and Bounce Rates Explained

After a campaign goes out, BillionMail shows how it did. The numbers are useful, but only if you know what they really measure. Open rates in particular are much less reliable than they look. This guide explains each number and what to do with it.

Where to find the numbers
There are three places:

• Overview (dashboard): totals for the whole server, including delivered, opened, clicked, bounced, the delayed queue and a breakdown by mail provider (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and so on).
  
• Email Marketing > Analytics: the report for one campaign, with a date range (Today, Yesterday, Last 7 Days or your own).
  
• Send API: send count and open, click and bounce rates for each API.
  

Open Email Marketing and click Analytics next to a task. The report looks like this:



What each number means

• Delivered (and Success in Send Statistics): the receiving server accepted the email. It does not mean it reached the inbox; spam folder counts as delivered.
  
• Bounced (and Failed): the receiving server refused it. A hard bounce (address doesn't exist) is permanent; a soft bounce (mailbox full, temporary block) may work later.
  
• Opened and the Open Rate chart: counted when a tiny tracking image in the email loads. Only works if Track Opens was on.
  
• Clicked and the Click Rate chart: someone clicked a link. Needs Track Clicks.
  
• Mail Providers: the same numbers split by Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo and others, so you can spot one provider causing trouble.
  
• Send Statistics: success rate plus the count of sent and failed messages per day.
  

Why open rates lie
Apple Mail Privacy Protection loads every image automatically, so many Apple users count as "opened" even if they never looked. Some corporate filters do the same. On the other side, people who block images never count as opened. So treat the open rate as a rough trend, not a fact. Clicks are much more trustworthy, and replies even more so.

What good numbers look like
Every list is different, but as a rough guide for an opt-in newsletter:

• Bounce rate: under 2%. Above 5% is a problem. Clean the list before the next send.
  
• Click rate: 1 to 5% of delivered emails is normal.
  
• Unsubscribes: under 0.5% per campaign is fine. A spike means the content or frequency surprised people. Unsubscribed people show with that status under Contacts > Subscribers.
  
• Spam complaints: keep them under 0.1%. Google asks bulk senders to stay below 0.1% and never reach 0.3%. You see complaints in Google Postmaster Tools, not in BillionMail.
  

What to do when numbers are bad

• High bounces: old or bought addresses. Remove hard bounces now, and think about re-confirming old subscribers. See contacts, groups and tags.
  
• Delivered fine, almost no opens or clicks: probably the spam folder. Run a test as in the deliverability guide and read emails going to spam.
  
• Many failures at one provider: check the provider breakdown on the Overview. If only Outlook or only Gmail fails, the reason is in the delay or bounce message; see emails stuck in the queue.
  
• Good opens, few clicks: the email works, the content doesn't. One clear link or button works better than ten.
  

Privacy note
Open and click tracking are personal data in many countries. Mention them in your privacy policy. For transactional email like password resets, it's often better to leave tracking off.

Compare like with like
Look at the same kind of email over time: this month's newsletter against last month's, not a newsletter against a welcome email. Small lists swing a lot; on 200 subscribers, three clicks more or less changes the click rate by 1.5%.

More BillionMail guides

• Send API for transactional email
  
• WordPress email through BillionMail SMTP
  
• Import contacts, groups and tags
  
• Email templates explained
  
• SMTP relay with Amazon SES, Brevo or Mailgun
  
• Mailboxes and webmail
  
• IP warm-up plan
  
• Move from Mailchimp or Sendy
  
• Add a second sending domain
  
• Send your first newsletter · DNS setup explained · Deliverability testing
  

Applies to BillionMail 4.9, October 2026. Replace

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example.com

and

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mail.example.com

with your own domain and mail hostname. Menu names can change a little between versions.