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Email Stats Documentation

Menu Location: Reports > Email/SMS > Email Stats

Access Level: Manager and above

Last Updated: 2026-03-01

Overview

The Email Stats page provides comprehensive analytics on email campaign performance, delivery metrics, and sender reputation. This page integrates with your email service provider (Mandrill) to show real-time data on email deliverability, open rates, click rates, and email blacklist management.

Primary Functions:

  • View 30-day email performance metrics
  • Monitor email deliverability and sender reputation
  • Track email open and click rates
  • Manage email blacklist (bounced/rejected emails)
  • Remove addresses from blacklist when appropriate
  • View weekly, monthly, and total send volumes

Page Layout

Header Section

  • Title: "Reports \ Email"
  • Quick Action Buttons:
  • Sent History: View complete email send history
  • No "Opens": Filter emails with zero opens

Main Metrics Dashboard

High-level statistics displayed prominently at top of page showing 30-day performance

Sender Reputation Boxes

Four metric boxes showing:

  • Reputation score
  • Sends this week
  • Sends this month
  • Total sends

30-Day Stats Section

Detailed breakdown of email metrics over last 30 days

Email Blacklist Table

List of all email addresses currently blocked from receiving emails, with management options

Email Performance Metrics

Primary Dashboard Metrics (Last 30 Days)

Delivered:

  • Total number of emails successfully delivered to recipients
  • Calculated as: Sent - Hard Bounces - Soft Bounces
  • This is your actual reach

Sent:

  • Total number of email send attempts
  • Includes all emails regardless of delivery success

Deliverability Rate:

  • Percentage of sent emails that were successfully delivered
  • Formula: (Delivered ÷ Sent) × 100
  • Industry benchmark: 95%+ is excellent
  • Below 90% indicates delivery issues

Average Open Rate:

  • Percentage of delivered emails that were opened
  • Shows unique opens (each recipient counted once)
  • Includes actual count in parentheses
  • Industry benchmark: 15-25% is typical

Average Click Rate:

  • Percentage of delivered emails that had at least one link clicked
  • Shows unique clicks (each recipient counted once)
  • Includes actual count in parentheses
  • Industry benchmark: 2-5% is typical

Sender Reputation

Reputation Score

  • Range: 0-100 (100 is perfect)
  • What it means: Email service provider's assessment of your sending quality
  • Good score: 80+
  • Warning level: 60-79
  • Problem level: Below 60

Factors affecting reputation:

  • Bounce rates (hard and soft)
  • Spam complaints
  • Blacklist additions
  • Sending volume consistency
  • Engagement rates (opens/clicks)

How to improve reputation:

  1. Remove invalid email addresses promptly
  2. Don't send to unsubscribed users
  3. Maintain consistent sending patterns
  4. Send valuable, engaging content
  5. Clean blacklist regularly
  6. Verify email addresses before sending

Send Volume Stats

Sends This Week:

  • Total emails sent in current week (Monday-Sunday)
  • Compare to typical volume to spot anomalies

Sends This Month:

  • Total emails sent in current calendar month
  • Useful for billing and quota monitoring

Total Sends:

  • Lifetime total of all emails sent through the platform
  • Cumulative metric since account creation

30-Day Detailed Stats

Complete breakdown of email performance over last 30 days:

Sends:

  • Total send attempts in last 30 days

Hard Bounces:

  • Emails rejected due to invalid/non-existent addresses
  • These addresses are automatically added to blacklist
  • Require email address correction

Soft Bounces:

  • Temporary delivery failures (mailbox full, server down, etc.)
  • May succeed if retried later
  • Not automatically blacklisted

Rejects:

  • Emails rejected by receiving server before delivery
  • Often due to spam filters or domain blocks

Complaints:

  • Recipients who marked your email as spam
  • SERIOUS issue - investigate immediately
  • Can damage sender reputation significantly

Unsubscribes:

  • Recipients who clicked unsubscribe link
  • These are automatically honored system-wide
  • Normal metric - track trends

Opens:

  • Total number of email opens (including multiple opens by same person)

Unique Opens:

  • Number of individual recipients who opened email
  • Each person counted once regardless of how many times they opened

Email Blacklist Management

Understanding the Blacklist

The blacklist exists to protect your sender reputation by preventing sends to problematic email addresses. Addresses are added automatically when:

  • Hard bounce occurs (invalid address)
  • Email is rejected by recipient server
  • Multiple soft bounces occur
  • Spam complaints received

WARNING: Removing addresses from blacklist can damage your sender reputation if those addresses continue to bounce or generate complaints.

Blacklist Table Columns

Customer Link:

  • Shows customer name (if email belongs to known customer)
  • Click to open customer detail page
  • Shows "-" if email not associated with customer account

Email:

  • The blacklisted email address

Reason/Detail:

  • Why the email was blacklisted
  • Common reasons:
  • "550 mailbox does not exist" - Invalid address
  • "550 user unknown" - Invalid address
  • "Mailbox full" - Soft bounce
  • "Spam complaint" - Recipient marked as spam

Created:

  • Date/time email was added to blacklist

Last Event:

  • Date/time of most recent bounce/reject

Remove Button:

  • Red "X" button to unblock the email
  • Requires confirmation
  • Use cautiously

Removing Email from Blacklist

IMPORTANT: Only remove emails from blacklist after verifying with customer that:

  1. The email address is correct
  2. They want to receive emails
  3. Their mailbox is functional

Steps to Remove:

  1. Locate email in blacklist table
  2. Verify customer has correct email address
  3. Contact customer to confirm email is working
  4. Click red "X" button in Remove column
  5. Confirm the removal when prompted
  6. Wait up to 24 hours for change to take effect

What happens when removed:

  • Email is removed from blacklist
  • Email is automatically added to whitelist
  • System can attempt to send to this address again
  • Entry in customer log created
  • Success/error message displayed

If removal fails:

  • Error message will appear
  • Check that email format is valid
  • Contact support if issue persists

Common Use Cases

Use Case 1: Monthly Performance Review

Goal: Assess email campaign effectiveness for the month

Steps:

  1. Navigate to Email Stats page
  2. Review Deliverability Rate (should be 95%+)
  3. Check Average Open Rate (compare to your baseline)
  4. Check Average Click Rate (compare to your baseline)
  5. Review 30-day complaints (should be minimal)
  6. Check Reputation score (should be 80+)
  7. Document findings for monthly report

What to look for:

  • Declining open rates = content engagement issue
  • Low deliverability = list quality issue
  • High complaints = content or frequency issue
  • Declining reputation = immediate action needed

Use Case 2: Customer Says Not Receiving Emails

Goal: Determine why customer isn't getting emails

Steps:

  1. Get customer's email address
  2. Open Email Stats page
  3. Scroll to Blacklist table
  4. Search for customer's email (Ctrl+F in browser)
  5. If found, review the reason
  6. Contact customer to verify email address is correct
  7. Ask customer to check spam folder
  8. If email is correct, remove from blacklist
  9. Send test email to customer
  10. Add note to customer account documenting resolution

Common resolutions:

  • Email was blacklisted due to old hard bounce
  • Customer changed email providers but address is same
  • Customer's mailbox was full but now has space
  • Email typo in original signup (update in system)

Use Case 3: Sender Reputation Dropping

Goal: Identify and fix cause of declining reputation

Steps:

  1. Note current reputation score
  2. Review 30-day stats for anomalies:
    • Spike in hard bounces?
    • Increase in complaints?
    • Higher than normal soft bounces?
  3. Check blacklist size (growing rapidly?)
  4. Review recent email campaigns:
    • Subject lines (spammy?)
    • Content quality
    • Send frequency (too high?)
    • List quality (purchased lists?)
  5. Clean blacklist of old/invalid entries
  6. Implement fixes:
    • Remove invalid addresses
    • Improve content quality
    • Reduce send frequency
    • Segment audience better
  7. Monitor reputation daily for 1-2 weeks

Use Case 4: Preparing for Major Email Campaign

Goal: Ensure system is ready for high-volume send

Steps:

  1. Check current reputation score (should be 80+)
  2. Review deliverability rate (should be 95%+)
  3. Clean blacklist of any correctable addresses
  4. Review last 30-day metrics for baseline
  5. Verify sender reputation is stable
  6. Check monthly sends vs. quota
  7. Send test campaign to small segment first
  8. Monitor results before sending to full list
  9. Return to Email Stats after campaign to measure impact

Pre-campaign checklist:

  • Reputation score 80+
  • Deliverability 95%+
  • Low complaint rate (under 0.1%)
  • Blacklist cleaned
  • Test send successful

Use Case 5: Quarterly Blacklist Cleanup

Goal: Remove correctable addresses from blacklist

Steps:

  1. Export blacklist (or manually review)
  2. Identify addresses with reasons that might be fixable:
    • "Mailbox full" (temporary issue)
    • Soft bounces older than 90 days
  3. For each potential removal:
    • Find customer in system
    • Check if they're still active
    • Verify email in their customer profile
    • Contact customer to confirm email works
  4. Remove confirmed emails from blacklist
  5. Document removals in customer notes
  6. Monitor deliverability after cleanup

Troubleshooting

Low Deliverability Rate (Below 90%)

Symptoms:

  • Deliverability percentage is below 90%
  • High number of bounces
  • Growing blacklist

Solutions:

  1. Review blacklist for patterns (specific domain bouncing?)
  2. Check for imported lists with bad data
  3. Implement double opt-in for new signups
  4. Remove obvious invalid emails ([email protected], etc.)
  5. Validate email format on signup forms
  6. Contact email service provider if persistent

Common Causes:

  • Old/purchased email lists
  • Lack of email validation on signup
  • Not cleaning bounces regularly
  • Sending to inactive accounts

Low Open Rates (Below 10%)

Symptoms:

  • Average open rate is below 10%
  • Declining opens over time
  • Good deliverability but low engagement

Check:

  1. Subject line quality (compelling? not spammy?)
  2. Send time (are you sending at optimal time?)
  3. Sender name (recognizable to recipients?)
  4. Email frequency (too many emails?)
  5. List segmentation (sending relevant content?)
  6. Mobile optimization (emails render on mobile?)

Solutions:

  1. A/B test subject lines
  2. Segment audience and personalize
  3. Adjust send schedule
  4. Review sender name
  5. Reduce frequency if over-sending
  6. Improve email content quality

If Problem Persists: Contact email marketing consultant to review strategy

Cannot Remove Email from Blacklist

Symptoms:

  • Click Remove button but email stays blacklisted
  • Error message appears
  • Changes don't take effect after 24 hours

Solutions:

  1. Verify email format is valid
  2. Check that you have Manager permissions
  3. Try refreshing page and removing again
  4. Clear browser cache
  5. Check system log for errors
  6. Contact support with specific email address

Common Causes:

  • Email provider service temporarily unavailable
  • Invalid email format in blacklist
  • Permission restrictions
  • Browser caching old data

Reputation Score Suddenly Dropped

Symptoms:

  • Reputation drops 10+ points quickly
  • Recent email campaign had issues
  • Spike in bounces or complaints

Immediate Actions:

  1. Stop all outbound email campaigns
  2. Review last email sent:
    • Subject line spammy?
    • Content issues?
    • Wrong audience?
  3. Check 30-day stats:
    • Complaint spike?
    • Bounce spike?
  4. Review blacklist for recent additions
  5. Check if email content triggered spam filters
  6. Contact email service provider for guidance

Recovery Steps:

  1. Clean blacklist completely
  2. Pause campaigns for 24-48 hours
  3. Improve email content quality
  4. Start with small, highly engaged segments
  5. Gradually increase volume over 2 weeks
  6. Monitor reputation daily
  • Emails Sent History - Complete log of all emails sent
  • Email Pending Queue - Emails queued to send
  • Un-opened Emails - Filter sent emails with zero opens
  • Email Templates - Manage email templates used in campaigns
  • Customers - Customer management (includes email subscription status)
  • SMS Pending Queue - Text message queue management

Typical Workflow:

  1. Review Email Stats before campaign
  2. Create/select email template
  3. Send campaign via Customers page bulk email
  4. Return to Email Stats to monitor performance
  5. Review Sent History for individual email status
  6. Clean blacklist as needed

Permissions & Access

Required Access Level: Manager or higher

Access Level Capabilities:

  • Manager: View all stats, manage blacklist, export data
  • Administrator: All Manager capabilities + service provider settings
  • Kiva Admin: All features + API access, testing tools

Restricted Features:

  • Remove from Blacklist: Requires Manager or higher
  • Service Provider Settings: Requires Administrator or Kiva Admin
  • API Testing: Requires Kiva Admin only

Best Practices

Daily Monitoring

  1. Check reputation score daily
  2. Monitor blacklist growth (should be minimal)
  3. Review deliverability trends
  4. Address complaints immediately

Weekly Review

  1. Review weekly send volume vs. baseline
  2. Check open rate trends
  3. Clean blacklist of correctable addresses
  4. Document any reputation changes

Monthly Analysis

  1. Calculate month-over-month metric changes
  2. Review 30-day stats in detail
  3. Analyze campaign performance patterns
  4. Clean blacklist thoroughly
  5. Report on email program health

Campaign Best Practices

  1. Always send test email first
  2. Check reputation before large sends
  3. Segment audience appropriately
  4. Monitor stats during campaign
  5. Review performance after campaign

Things to Avoid

  • Never send to purchased or rented lists
  • Don't send too frequently (causes unsubscribes)
  • Don't use spammy subject lines
  • Don't remove blacklist addresses without verification
  • Don't ignore declining reputation scores
  • Never send without testing first
  • Don't send to unsubscribed users

Integration Points

Mandrill Email Service

  • Real-time stat syncing
  • Automatic blacklist management
  • Sender reputation scoring
  • 30-day metrics aggregation

Sync Frequency: Real-time to 15 minutes for stats

Status Indicators: Metrics update automatically when page loads

Recent Updates

February 2026:

  • Added automatic whitelist addition when removing from blacklist
  • Improved blacklist removal confirmation
  • Enhanced customer linking in blacklist table
  • Updated metric calculations for accuracy

January 2026:

  • Added 30-day detailed stats section
  • Improved reputation score display
  • Enhanced bounce reason details
  • Added customer notes integration for blacklist removals

Quick Reference Card

Task Action/Location
View overall email performance Check main dashboard metrics at top
Check sender reputation Look at Reputation box (should be 80+)
Find customer on blacklist Scroll to Blacklist table, use Ctrl+F to search
Remove email from blacklist Find in table, verify with customer, click red X
View email send history Click "Sent History" button in header
Check 30-day performance Review "30 Day Stats" section
See emails never opened Click "No Opens" button in header
Monitor deliverability Check Deliverability % in main dashboard
Track complaints Check Complaints in 30-day stats (keep minimal)
Verify reputation is healthy Reputation 80+, Deliverability 95%+, Complaints near zero

FAQs

What's a good sender reputation score?

80-100 is excellent, 60-79 is concerning and needs attention, below 60 is critical and requires immediate action. Maintain 80+ by keeping lists clean, avoiding spam complaints, and sending quality content.

How often should I clean the blacklist?

Monthly minimum, but review whenever a customer reports not receiving emails. Only remove addresses after verifying with customer that email is correct and working.

Why is my open rate lower than I expected?

Open rates vary by industry, but 15-25% is typical. Factors affecting opens: subject line quality, sender name recognition, send time, audience engagement, mobile optimization, and content relevance. Focus on improving these areas.

What's the difference between hard and soft bounces?

Hard bounces = permanent failures (invalid address, domain doesn't exist) - automatically blacklisted. Soft bounces = temporary failures (mailbox full, server down) - may succeed later, not automatically blacklisted. Clean hard bounces immediately.

Can I see stats for individual email campaigns?

Yes, click "Sent History" button to view complete send log with individual campaign performance. You can filter by date, template, subject line, and other criteria.

How long does it take for blacklist removals to take effect?

Up to 24 hours for the system to fully process the removal. The email is immediately eligible for sends, but stat displays may take time to update.

What should I do if reputation drops below 60?

STOP all email campaigns immediately. Review recent sends for problems, clean blacklist completely, investigate complaint spikes, improve content quality, and contact your email service provider. Resume sending slowly to small, engaged segments only.

Why do some emails show "-" in the customer column?

The email address in the blacklist is not associated with any customer account in your system. This could be from a deleted account, typo in email address, or email from a non-customer (like a gift recipient).

How can I improve my click rate?

Include clear call-to-action buttons, make links obvious and clickable, ensure mobile optimization, send relevant content to targeted segments, use compelling copy, and test different layouts. Track which campaigns get best clicks and replicate that approach.

What's the most important metric to watch?

Sender reputation is #1 - if this drops, everything else suffers. After that, deliverability rate (should be 95%+) and complaint rate (should be near zero). These three metrics determine long-term email program success.

End of Documentation

For additional help, contact your system administrator or Kiva Logic support.