Sending your newsletter is just the beginning. To understand its impact and improve future campaigns, you need to analyze its performance. This guide explains how to use the Newsletter Studio analytics dashboard to track engagement and diagnose delivery issues.

1. The Performance Dashboard

The Newsletter Studio homepage features an interactive dashboard that gives you a high-level overview of your overall performance.

Filtering by Date Range

At the top of the dashboard, you can customize the analysis period. This allows you to track trends over time. You can select from predefined periods or choose a custom date range.

   Predefined periods                                                Customized range

Global Performance Metrics

The dashboard displays three key metrics that aggregate the data from all newsletters sent within your selected time frame:

• Global Delivery Rate (%): The percentage of emails that were successfully delivered to recipients' inboxes compared to the total number of emails sent. A high delivery rate is crucial for ensuring your message reaches its audience.
• Global Open Rate (%): The percentage of recipients who opened your email out of the total number delivered. This metric helps you gauge how effective your subject lines are and how engaged your audience is.
• Global Click Rate (%): The percentage of delivered emails in which at least one link was clicked. This is a critical indicator of how interesting and relevant your content is to your readers.

2. Analyzing an Individual Newsletter

To dive deeper, you can click on any sent newsletter from the homepage. This opens a comprehensive report screen, which provides full details about the campaign and its performance.

The report screen is divided into two main parts: a visual preview of the sent newsletter on the right, and a detailed information panel on the left. The left panel contains the following sections:

Newsletter Information

At the top, you will find key information about the newsletter's setup:

• Sender: The user who was set as the sender.
• Subject: The subject line of the newsletter.
• Author: The user who created the newsletter.
• Recipients: The groups or users the newsletter was sent to.

Performance Metrics Summary

This section gives you a snapshot of the campaign's engagement, including:

• Delivery Rate (%): The success rate of email delivery for this specific newsletter.
• Opening Rate (%): The percentage of recipients who opened this newsletter.
• Click Rate (%): The percentage of recipients who clicked a link in this newsletter.

Link Click Tracking

This detailed view also lists every link included in your newsletter (including links to SharePoint news) and shows the total number of times each link was clicked. This helps you identify which content resonated most with your audience.

3. Understanding the Error Report

For any newsletter that is Sent or has Failed, a detailed error report is available. This report is essential for troubleshooting delivery issues and maintaining a healthy recipient list. It lists each email address that did not receive the newsletter and provides a reason for the failure.

Possible Error Reasons

• Dropped: The email was not sent from our system, often for a pre-existing reason.
  • Invalid Address: The email address is known to be badly formatted or non-existent.
  • Unsubscribed: The recipient has previously opted out of receiving emails.
  • Spam Complaint: The recipient has previously marked an email from you as spam.
• Deferred: The recipient's email server temporarily rejected the message. This is often a temporary issue (e.g., their mailbox is full) and the system may try to deliver it again.
• Bounce: The email was permanently rejected by the recipient's server and could not be delivered.
  • Invalid Address: The email address does not exist or has been deactivated.
  • Mailbox Full: The recipient's inbox cannot accept new messages.
  • Blocked: The recipient's server or a firewall blocked the email.

Conclusion

You now have a complete set of guides covering the entire lifecycle of creating and sending a newsletter with Newsletter Studio. By regularly reviewing your performance data and acting on the insights from your analytics and error reports, you can continuously refine your communication strategy, improve engagement, and ensure your messages have the maximum impact.