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

Table of Contents

1. The Performance Dashboard
   • Filter by Time Period
   • Overall Performance Metrics
2. Analyzing an Individual Newsletter Report
   • Newsletter Information
   • Performance Metrics Summary
   • Link Click Tracking
3. Understanding the Error Report
   • Possible Error Reasons (Dropped, Deferred, Bounce)

1. The Performance Dashboard

The Newsletter Studio homepage features an interactive dashboard that gives you an overall view of your performance.

Filter by Time Period

At the top of the dashboard, you can customize the analysis period. This allows you to track trends over time. You can choose from predefined periods (e.g., the last 7 days, last month) or select a custom date range.

   Predefined periods                                                Customized range

Overall Performance Metrics

The dashboard displays three key metrics that aggregate data from all newsletters sent during the selected period:

• Overall Deliverability Rate (%): The percentage of emails that were successfully delivered to recipients’ inboxes compared to the total number of emails sent.
• Overall Open Rate (%): The percentage of recipients who opened your email out of the total number of emails delivered. This metric helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your email subject lines.
• Overall Click Rate (%): The percentage of delivered emails in which at least one link was clicked. This is a key indicator of your content’s relevance.

2. Analyzing an Individual Newsletter Report

For a more in-depth analysis, you can click on any newsletter sent from the homepage. This opens a full report screen that provides all the 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 designated as the sender.
• Subject: The newsletter’s subject line.
• Author: The user who created the newsletter.
• Recipients: The groups or users to whom the newsletter was sent.

Performance Metrics Summary

This section gives you an overview of the campaign’s engagement, including:

• Deliverability Rate (%): The success rate of email delivery for this specific newsletter.
• Open Rate (%): The percentage of recipients who opened this newsletter.
• Click Rate (%): The percentage of recipients who clicked on 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 clicks each individual link received. This helps you identify which content most interested your audience.

3. Understanding the Error Report

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

Possible Error Reasons

• Dropped: The email was not sent from our system, often due to a preexisting reason.
  • Invalid Address: The email address is known to be malformed or nonexistent.
  • Unsubscribed: The recipient previously opted out of receiving emails.
  • Spam Complaint: The recipient previously marked one of your emails as spam.
• Deferred: The recipient’s mail server temporarily rejected the message. This is often a temporary issue (e.g., their inbox is full) and the system may attempt to deliver it again. In general, the email was likely delivered despite this message.
  If your delivery rate is 100%, you can be assured: all emails were successfully delivered.
• Bounced: 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.
  • Inbox 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 comprehensive 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 insights from your analytics and error reports, you can continuously refine your communication strategy, improve engagement, and ensure your messages have maximum impact.