Open a sent campaign and you see, row by row, what became of every message. It is the screen that tells you whether the invitation arrived, whether it was read, and where something broke.
A message's states
| State | Meaning | Is it fine? |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Created, not queued yet | Transient |
| Queued | Waiting to go out | Transient |
| Sent | Handed to the mail provider | Yes |
| Delivered | Accepted by the recipient's server | Yes |
| Opened | The recipient opened it | Yes |
| Clicked | They clicked a link | The best one |
| Unopened / Unclicked | Delivered but no interaction | Normal, for a share of recipients |
| Bounced | Rejected by the recipient's server | Worth a look |
| Blocked | Not sent: unsubscribed or blocked | Intended |
| Failed | Could not be sent | Worth a look |
States can be filtered: that is how you isolate every bounce in a campaign in two seconds.
What to do with them
Opens. They tell you whether the subject worked. A low figure is nearly always a subject or sender problem, not a content one: nobody saw the content.
Clicks. These are the serious number: they measure who wanted to answer. On an invitation the click is the gesture that counts, because it leads to the landing page.
Unopened. This is the list your reminder comes from. One caveat though: open tracking is not a hundred per cent reliable — many mail clients block the tracking pixel, and somebody reading in a preview pane without opening still counts as unopened. Treat it as an indication, not a truth.
Bounces. Always worth a look. A few bounces on an old list is normal; a lot of bounces on a new list means that list is of doubtful origin, and carrying on with it damages your domain's reputation.
Blocked. Not an error: these are people who had unsubscribed or that you blocked yourself. The system excluded them, which is exactly its job.
Opens and clicks in the real world
An event invitation, sent to your own well-kept list, usually performs far better than a commercial newsletter: people are expecting it. But the number that matters is not an absolute — it is yours, compared with your own previous campaign.
After three or four events you have a baseline worth more than any industry average.
The full picture: campaign and event
Campaign statistics tell you what the email did. The event page tells you what the people did: how many confirmed, how many declined, how many are silent.
They are two different questions and should be read together. A great open rate with few confirmations usually means the invitation was handsome but the answer page asked too much, or it was not clear what to do.
Why there are fewer recipients than guests
A frequent question, with three possible causes, all legitimate:
- Some guests have unsubscribed.
- Some contacts are blocked.
- Some have no valid email address — which happens with guests imported without one.
The state filter tells you in a moment. If the gap is large, your address book needs a clean-up more than your campaign needs fixing.
When something does not add up
| Symptom | Where to look |
|---|---|
| The campaign stays in sending | Large campaigns take a few minutes. If it has not moved after an hour, write to us |
| A guest says they never got it | Search their address in the message list: the state says whether it bounced, was blocked, or was delivered (in which case it is in their spam folder) |
| Every open is at zero | If it has just gone out, that is normal. If hours have passed, check you do not have a filter active |
| A lot of bounces | An old list, or one of doubtful origin. See Troubleshooting |