Tracking emails

Open a sent email from the Emails page (the search box at the top finds one by subject), and its status card shows where the send is. Below it, Activity and Falloff fill in as subscribers read it. An email sent without open and click tracking shows one Performance section instead. Select a row to see what it counts and what’s healthy.

Deliveries, bounces, complaints, and unsubscribes are counted on every send. Opens and clicks are counted only while open and click tracking is on. It’s on for new accounts, and you can turn it off in Settings.

Email status

• Scheduled: the email is waiting for its send date and time.
• In review: XOXO is checking the email before it sends. Email reviews explains the wait.
• Sending: delivery has started. Some sends go out in stages, so it can take a few hours to finish. Sending emails explains why.
• Sent: the email went to everyone in the selected audience.
• Send canceled: the email was stopped before everyone received it.

Email performance

Delivery, open, and click rates settle for 48 hours after a send finishes, since deliveries retry and opens trickle in, so the colored scale shows once that’s passed.

Deliveries

Delivered counts emails your subscribers’ email providers accepted. A provider can still file an accepted email as spam, so delivered doesn’t always mean the inbox. Opens, clicks, complaints, and unsubscribes are each a share of delivered emails, and bounces are a share of every email sent. Select View subscribers to see who it went to.

Healthy

Above 95%

Unhealthy

90.01%–95%

Critical

90% or below

Opens

Opened is an estimate of subscribers who opened the email. It only appears when tracking was on at the time you sent. Some inboxes block open tracking and others open every email automatically, so read it as a trend. While tracking is on, select View subscribers to see who opened it.

Healthy

Above 20%

Unhealthy

10.01%–20%

Critical

10% or below

Clicks

Clicked is an estimate of subscribers who followed a link in the email. It only appears when tracking was on at the time you sent. A click also counts as an open. While tracking is on, select View subscribers to see who clicked.

Healthy

Above 2%

Unhealthy

1.01%–2%

Critical

1% or less

Bounces

Bounced counts subscribers whose address couldn’t receive the email. XOXO deletes them from your audience automatically. Keeping bounces low is one of our performance requirements.

Healthy

Below 2%

Unhealthy

2%–4.99%

Critical

5% or more

Complaints

Complained counts subscribers who marked the email as spam. XOXO deletes them from your audience automatically, and they can’t be added back. Keeping complaints low is one of our performance requirements.

Healthy

Below 0.02%

Unhealthy

0.02%–0.09%

Critical

0.1% or more

Unsubscribes

Unsubscribed counts subscribers who used the Unsubscribe link. XOXO deletes them from your audience automatically.

Healthy

Below 0.5%

Unhealthy

0.5%–0.99%

Critical

1% or more

Performance requirements

Bounces and spam complaints decide whether email reaches inboxes, yours and everyone else’s on XOXO. The bounce and complaint scales under email performance show how each send is doing. If a send’s bounces or complaints run high, we pause the rest of it and a person takes a look, sometimes before a scale turns critical. If we stop it, you’ll get an email explaining what happened, and we’ll review your next send before it goes out.

Our Acceptable Use Policy has the rest. Bounces and complaints explains what we expect, and how we enforce this policy covers what happens when a send goes over.

To keep your rates healthy, remove old, inactive, or questionable subscribers, and send only to people who expect to hear from you. For your next email, try a focused group instead of your whole audience.