Metrics Explained

SendBeam records a set of standard email engagement events for every email you send. Understanding exactly what each metric measures — and where its limitations lie — helps you interpret your reports accurately and avoid drawing the wrong conclusions from the numbers.

Opens and machine opens

An open is recorded when a subscriber's email client loads the invisible tracking pixel that SendBeam adds at the bottom of each email. Opens are counted once per email: a subscriber opening the same email three times counts as one opened email. The Opened figure on a campaign is therefore the number of recipients who opened it.

Machine opens

Security scanners, link checkers and Apple Mail's privacy protection fetch email content — including tracking pixels — on behalf of the user, regardless of whether the email is actually read. SendBeam treats an open as a machine open when it comes from a known scanner or bot, or when it happens within seconds of the send — faster than a person could open it. Machine opens are recorded but excluded from every open count and rate.

• Open rates are still an approximation: some real readers block images, and some automated fetches slip through.
• Click data is much less affected, making clicks the more reliable engagement signal.
• For audiences with heavy Apple Mail usage, treat click rate as your primary engagement KPI rather than open rate.

Clicks

SendBeam tracks link clicks by rewriting every link in your email to pass through a short redirect on sendbeam.io. When a subscriber clicks a link, the redirect logs the event and immediately forwards them to the original destination.

• Clicks are counted once per email, so the Clicked figure is the number of recipients who clicked any link.
• A click also counts as an open, since the email must have been read.
• Clicks that look automated (security scanners following every link) are excluded in the same way as machine opens.

Bounces

A bounce occurs when an email cannot be delivered to the recipient's inbox. SendBeam receives bounce notifications from the receiving mail servers automatically and distinguishes two types.

Hard bounces

A hard bounce means permanent delivery failure — typically because the email address does not exist, the domain is invalid, or the receiving mail server has blocked the address outright. SendBeam sets the contact's status to Bounced and no campaign will send to them again. Continuing to send to invalid addresses damages your sender reputation with inbox providers, so leave them bounced or delete them.

Soft bounces

A soft bounce is a temporary failure — the inbox is full, the receiving server is down, or the message was too large. A soft bounce counts as a bounce in the email's status and in the campaign's bounce figure, but it does not change the contact's status, so they are included in future sends as normal.

Unsubscribes

Every email SendBeam sends carries a one-click unsubscribe link. If your content includes the {{unsubscribe_url}} merge tag the link goes where you put it; otherwise SendBeam appends a plain "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom. Emails also carry the List-Unsubscribe headers that let Gmail, Outlook and others show their own unsubscribe button. When a subscriber unsubscribes, the following happens automatically:

1. The unsubscribe is counted against the campaign it came from.
2. The contact's status is changed to Unsubscribed. Status is workspace-wide, so this covers every list they belong to.
3. Campaigns no longer include the contact, whichever audience is chosen.
4. The subscriber sees a confirmation page.

Every unsubscribe link is signed for its recipient. A link without a valid signature — one that has been altered, or copied from an email sent before links were signed — shows an "invalid link" page instead of unsubscribing anyone.

A spam complaint has the same effect, with the status set to Complained, and is included in the campaign's unsubscribed count. Contacts can also be unsubscribed by hand by editing their status on the contact page.

Rate formulas and benchmarks

SendBeam calculates its rates against the number of emails sent:

• Delivered % = (Delivered ÷ Sent) × 100
• Open rate = (Opened ÷ Sent) × 100, machine opens excluded
• Click rate = (Clicked ÷ Sent) × 100
• Bounce rate = (Bounced ÷ Sent) × 100
• Unsubscribe rate = (Unsubscribed ÷ Sent) × 100

Because the denominator is sent rather than delivered, open and click rates come out slightly lower than tools that divide by delivered. Keep that in mind when comparing against published benchmarks.

Industry benchmarks

The following ranges are broad averages across industries. Your numbers may vary significantly based on your audience, sending frequency, and content type.