Newsletter Analysis
Introduction
Artshell's analytics allow you to monitor the performance of the emails and newsletters you send, helping you understand how recipients interact with your communications. Using these analytics, you can assess the effectiveness of a single communication and gain insights to keep your Contacts database clean and up-to-date by quickly identifying invalid or inactive email addresses.
In addition to key metrics, such as opens and link clicks, you can check:
- how many emails were actually sent;
- which addresses contain syntax errors;
- which recipients did not receive the message because their emails bounced;
- those who have chosen to unsubscribe from the newsletter.
Important
Depending on recipients' tracking preferences, Artshell can track opens and clicks either by associating them with an email address or anonymously. For this reason, in some sections of the Analytics, the aggregate data may include anonymous interactions, while the lists of individual email addresses show only those recipients for whom tracking is enabled.
For more information on how tracking works, see the article How Email Open Tracking Works.
This guide explains how to interpret the data and identify the most common situations that can affect your campaigns' performance. You can also export all analytics to Excel so you can delve deeper into the data for each newsletter and easily share it with your team.
To ensure your data remains accurate and your campaigns are effective, we recommend keeping your Contacts section up to date and well organized, making sure to add email addresses and regularly checking the status of each one.
Before you begin
To interpret the analyses correctly, we recommend that you first read the following articles:
When we refer to a recipient, we mean each individual email address, not the contact’s record . If a contact has two email addresses, the software counts them as two recipients. Thisclarification helps you interpret the numerical reports correctly and explain any differences between the number of Contacts and the number of recipients.
Access the analytics
To view the analytics, select the email you're interested in and click the " Analysis " button at the top.
Analytics Overview
This section provides an overview of your communication performance. Each figure is accompanied by a number and a percentage, To learn more about what the percentage means, click the icon . Click the icons to view the complete list of addresses associated with each box in more detail.
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Submit | Number of emails sent successfully |
| Errors | URLs with syntax errors |
| Open | Openings identified in the communication, including any anonymous openings |
| Open links | Clicks detected on links in the communication, including any anonymous clicks |
| Bounced | Undelivered Emails |
| Unsubscribed | Recipients who have unsubscribed |
The items included in the overview are:
Submit
The " Sent " box shows the number of recipients to whom the message was successfully delivered.
The following are automatically excluded from the count:
- addresses with syntax errors;
- inactive addresses;
- unsubscribed recipients;
- Email addresses already marked as bounced in previous mailings.
The percentage is calculated based on the total number of active addresses in field A:
TheBox Submit does not necessarily display all the addresses entered inthe "To:" field.
Errors
The " Errors " pane displays the addresses to which the message was not sent because they contain syntax errors.
Some of the most common errors we see include:
info(at)galleria.com- (at) instead of the @ symbol;gallery@gmai.com- in which The "L" is missing in Gmail;team@theartgallery.com- between the domain name and "com" The period "." is missing..
In these cases, the address is not recognized as valid and is automatically excluded from the mailing.
The percentage represents the ratio of addresses with errors to the total number of recipients.
If there are syntax errors in the message you sent, a red triangle will also appear in the email index as an indicator.
Note: the red triangle in the list of emails
If a message contains addresses with syntax errors or Email bounced, the email list includes a red triangle which indicates that there are issues with certain recipients.
The presence of the red triangle does not mean that the entire message was not sent correctly, nor does it necessarily indicate a problem with the email domain configuration.
This indicator is designed to draw your attention to addresses where the shipment or delivery was unsuccessful.
To find out how many recipients were affected and verify the nature of the issues, check the " Errors " and " Bounced " sections in the communication analytics.
Open
The "Opens " panel displays the total number of opens recorded for the communication. The total may also include opens recorded anonymously, which contribute to the newsletter's analytics without being associated with the recipient's first name, last name, or email address.
When you click on the box, you can see the total at the top, while the list of tracked addresses shows only those recipients for whom we can confirm that the email was opened. For this reason, the total number shown in the Analytics may differ from the number of addresses in the list.
Recipients who have opened your email are marked with the two blue checkmarks ( ).
This metric allows you to assess the interest generated by the email subject line and is one of the key indicators of the newsletter's performance.
Open links
The " Open Links " panel shows the clicks tracked on the links in the message.
In this case as well, the total may include clicks tracked anonymously. These interactions contribute to the overall analysis but are not associated with any individual recipient.
When you open the box, you'll see the total at the top and the *Tracked Addresses* at the bottom , which list only the recipients for whom a click can be identified and, when available, the link that was selected. As a result, the total number of clicks detected may be higher than the number of addresses shown in the list.
The number next to the icon Indicates how many times the link was clicked by that recipient.
The percentage represents the number of email addresses that clicked at least one link within the message, out of the total number of emails opened.
Warning
Click-through and open rates may be affected by spam filters or the recipient’s email client settings. In some cases, spam filters analyze the email and check the links it contains; this can result in:
- a higher number of openings than actually occurred;
- A list of links that were opened only once, without the recipient actually clicking on them.
Bounced
The " Bounced " column lists the addresses to which the message was sent but was not delivered due to technical issues, such as:
- invalid address;
- mailbox full;
- Temporary issues with the receiving server.
You can find a more detailed explanation of the "Bounced" status in the dedicated article.
The percentage indicates the ratio of bounced addresses to the total number of emails sent.
Note
Artshell does not send emails to addresses that have already been marked as bounced. In other words, if an address has already been marked as bounced in connection with a previous mailing, no new attempt to send the email will be made, and therefore no new error report will be generated.
How can I keep track of addresses marked as bounced?
All address statuses are visible within the record and can be searched for using the search bar in the Contacts section. You can check how many bounced Contacts in your Contacts section Contacts any time by doing the following:
Unsubscribed
This box shows the number of recipients who have opted out of receiving your newsletters.
The percentage is calculated based on the total number of recipients of the communication.
Note
When an email address unsubscribes, its contact record is also updated to show the status next to the unsubscribed address. You can check how many unsubscribed Contacts addresses you have in your Contacts section at any time by doing the following:
If the contact signed up through the Artshell newsletter form and you have configured the corresponding sign-up tag, that tag will remain associated with the contact even after they unsubscribe.
Calendar
The Calendar section shows the trend in opens and clicks over time. By default, the entire range between the first and last recorded interactions is displayed. If you prefer, you can narrow your analysis to a specific range by selecting dates from the calendar using the " Period" button.
In addition, you can use the drop-down menu to choose whether to view only page views or link clicks, depending on your needs.
Addresses with the most recorded openings
This section shows the tracked recipients for whom Artshell has detected multiple opens of the message. The list is sorted from the highest to the lowest number of opens. Opens detected anonymously are not shown in this list.
For each tracked address, you can view:
- The date and time of the last time it was opened.
- The number of openings detected, as shown by the counter next to the icon .
- The links that were clicked and, when there are multiple interactions, the corresponding number of clicks, indicated by the counter and the eye icon next to the link's URL.
You can use " See All " and the filters to find a specific recipient by name or email address.
Example
To better explain how the"Most Open" section works, below is an illustrative image showing the analysis using sample data.
As you can see, the email was opened 126 times (as indicated by the number next to the two blue checkmarks) by the contact Marco Rossi (marco@studioferrucci.com), but no links were clicked. On the other hand, the contact Sofia Bianchi (sofia.bianchi@ateliercontemporaneo.it) opened the email 81 times. In addition, she clicked the first link twice (indicated by the number 2 next to the 👁️ icon) and the second link only once (the 👁️ icon next to this link shows no number, indicating a single click).
Tags
The " Tags " section groups analyses based on the tags assigned to Contacts. For each tag associated with your Contacts, you can view:
- How many recipients per tag opened the email.
- how many recipients the email was sent to by tag.
- How many recipients per tag opened at least one link within the email.
You can filter the data using the drop-down menu, as shown in the image below.
How to interpret the test results
Below are a few situations that, if identified in your newsletter analytics, warrant special attention. These are signs that your communications may not be reaching your target audience.
1. Very low percentage and number of emails sent
If the number of emails sent is very low, it means that some of the recipients were automatically excluded. This can happen when you've entered individual Contacts, groups, tags, or lists in the "To:" field that:
• contain syntax errors;
• are experiencing issues with their email accounts and will therefore be considered bounced from now on.
In the first case (syntax errors), the errors are also displayed in the Errors box.
Click on the box to view the list of incorrect addresses, then click on the contact to open its record correct the address.
Even after the correction, the error will continue to appear in the analytics for that specific communication. This ensures consistency in the data and performance metrics. You can still open the contact record to verify whether the address has been updated.
In the second case, the bounced addresses are displayed in the "Bounced" box. If there is a significant number of bounced addresses in the "Bounced" box, consider whether it is appropriate to permanently remove them from your database or take other steps to clean up your mailing list. Read more in section 2 below.
2. High email delivery rate and a very high number of bounced addresses
Even when the delivery rate is close to 100%, it is essential to pay attention if the analytics show a high number of bounced addresses. A high number of bounced addresses indicates that the database contains many addresses that are no longer reachable.
Artshell automatically excludes these addresses from future mailings to prevent further delivery attempts to undeliverable mailboxes.
In addition, the platform uses technical information collected on the deliverability of email addresses to identify them even when they are added to different accounts. For this reason, some addresses may already appear as "Bounced" even if no messages have yet been sent from your account.
This check pertains solely to the technical ability to deliver an email and does not involve the sharing of data, content, or Contacts information Contacts different accounts.
Keeping a large number of invalid addresses in the database reduces the value of your analyses and can negatively impact the sender domain’s reputation. For this reason, we recommend that you periodically review and, if necessary, Contacts remove Contacts that are no longer reachable.
3. Very low number of emails sent but high percentage
If you sent a message to a list consisting of, say, 300 recipients but the number of emails sent is much lower, even though the delivery rate shows 100% or a very high percentage, the reasons may be:
- The list includes many Contacts have unsubscribed from your previous emails over time; these contacts have been marked as such and are automatically excluded from the mailing list.
- The list includes numerous Contacts have become inactive over time or have been manually marked as inactive.
- The list includes many addresses that have already been flagged as bounced in the past. In fact, bounced addresses are recorded only once: at the moment the message fails to reach the recipient’s inbox. As mentioned earlier, Artshell does not report the same address as bounced in every subsequent message, but instead considers it an invalid address. This is why the delivery rate may still appear as 100%, since it is calculated only on addresses considered active.
4. Email addresses that appear to be correct
This error is less common and harder to spot, but it can still happen.
If you open the "Errors" box and see some email addresses that appear correct at first glance, it is very likely that they are not actually correct: they often contain "special" characters that are only visible in code, which are copied along with the text formatting from which the address was taken, and are then pasted into Artshell as well.
To help you understand better, below is an image showing what this code-based address actually looks like. You can see the "special" code &lrm:
As with all syntax errors, if the issue isn't corrected, the problem will continue to be flagged and the contact won't receive your messages.
To resolve the issue:
- Open the record .
- Delete the incorrect email address.
- Enter the address manually using the keyboard, avoiding copy-and-paste (otherwise, you risk copying the special character again and repeating the same error).
- Save the contact record.
Once the correction has been made, the address will no longer be flagged as a syntax error.
5. Multiple openings by the same recipient
In the "Most Opened " section, you may see a large number of opens associated with the same address, as in the example mentioned earlier—that is, 126 opens for a single recipient.
This figure indicates how many times Artshell detected the email being opened and associated those opens with that recipient. It does not necessarily mean that the person actually read the email that many times.
Multiple openings may depend on various factors that can also combine; for example:
- The recipient has opened the email several times over time;
- has accessed the same email from different devices (computer, smartphone, or tablet);
- The email client loaded the message content multiple times;
- The email provider or anti-spam systems performed automatic checks.
For this reason, we recommend interpreting open rates in conjunction with other metrics and viewing them as an indication of engagement, rather than as an exact measurement of the number of times a recipient has viewed the message.
6. Lots of page views but few clicks
A high number of opens relative to clicks does not necessarily mean that all recipients read the message without interacting with it.
It can depend on several factors:
- An effective subject, but the content is not very engaging;
- differences in recipients' tracking preferences;
- call to action that isn't very obvious;
- Automatic openings generated by email clients or antispam systems.
If this situation persists over time, it may be helpful to review your communication strategy—for example, by making calls to action more prominent, simplifying your message, or ensuring that the links are truly relevant to your target audience. For some tips on how to structure your communications, read the article “Best Practices for Sending Emails and Newsletters.”
Export the analyses
You can export the analytics for each message to Excel by clicking " Download Excel."
The Excel file contains the following fields:
To:
- Email, first name, last name, and company
- Nationality
- Address information (street, city, ZIP code, county/state, country)
- Contact type
- Tags
- Notes
Interaction data:
- Delivery date and time
- Date and time of the last time it was opened
- Contact status after sending
- Open links
Where can I find the export files for the analyses?
All exported files can be accessed from the Export section, which you can reach by clickingthe @icon in the left-hand side menu. To view only the files related to the analyses, use the filter in the top-right corner and select Excel - Newsletter Analysis.
When you select an export, you can use the icons at the top to:
- : to share the link to the Excel file.
- : to download the Excel file to your computer.
- : to rename the file, extend its expiration date, or delete it.
The other fields provide additional information about the file, such as the creation date, the number of entries in your file (i.e., the number of rows in the Excel file—each row corresponds to an email address), the file size, and the expiration date.