Once a campaign sends, the reports show how it performed — opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes. These numbers tell you whether your communications are landing, which content resonates, and where to improve next time.
Where to find reports
Two entry points:
- Per-campaign report — open any campaign from the campaigns list. The detail page shows that campaign’s stats.
- Overall reports — Newsroom → Reports for cross-campaign views.
What’s tracked
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Delivered | Emails that reached the recipient’s mail server (sent minus bounces). |
| Opens | Unique recipients who opened the email at least once. |
| Open rate | Opens ÷ Delivered, as a percentage. |
| Clicks | Recipients who clicked at least one link. |
| Click rate | Clicks ÷ Delivered. |
| Bounces | Emails that couldn’t be delivered (hard or soft bounce). |
| Unsubscribes | Recipients who unsubscribed via the campaign’s unsubscribe link. |
| Spam complaints | Recipients who marked the email as spam in their email client. |
Open and click counts are unique by default — the same person opening twice counts as one open.
Per-campaign drill-down
Click into a campaign to see:
- The headline metrics above.
- A list of recipients with their per-person status.
- Which links were clicked, by how many people.
- The send timeline (sometimes important for diagnosing delivery delays).
- A geographical/device breakdown (where supported by your email provider).
What good looks like
Rough benchmarks for school audiences:
- Open rate: 30-50% for parent communications is typical. Above 50% is excellent. Below 25% suggests a problem.
- Click rate: 5-15% for parent communications. Higher for content with strong calls to action.
- Bounce rate: under 2% is healthy. Above 5% needs investigation — usually old/stale email addresses.
- Unsubscribe rate: under 0.5% per campaign. Above 1% is a warning sign — probably too many sends or off-target content.
Compare to your own historical baseline — a 35% open rate is great if you usually get 25%, and concerning if you usually get 50%.
Diagnosing issues
| Symptom | Likely cause | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Open rate dropping | Sender reputation issue or recipient fatigue | Check spam complaint rate; reduce send frequency. |
| Click rate dropping | Subject lines work but content doesn’t | Review content quality and call-to-action clarity. |
| Bounce rate rising | List has stale addresses | Clean the list — remove repeated hard-bounce addresses. |
| Spam complaints rising | Recipients consider the email unwanted | Tighten audience targeting; ensure unsubscribe is easy. |
| Unsubscribes spiking on one campaign | That campaign’s content was off-target | Review what was different; survey unsubscribers if possible. |
Cross-campaign analysis
The overall reports page lets you compare:
- Open rates over time.
- Best and worst-performing campaigns.
- Best and worst-performing senders.
- Best-performing send times.
Use this to inform when you send (e.g. Tuesday morning beats Friday afternoon for your audience) and who from (the principal’s sends might out-perform the comms team’s).
Exporting
Reports export to CSV for further analysis. Useful when you need to slice by audience segment that PortalHQ’s UI doesn’t surface directly, or when you’re presenting to leadership.
Tips
- Set baselines. Review reports monthly so you know what normal looks like for your school.
- Don’t over-react to one campaign. A bad campaign is data, not a crisis. Look at trends across multiple sends.
- Investigate unsubscribes occasionally. PortalHQ stores the unsubscribe reason if the recipient provides one — useful signal.
- Test send times. Most schools settle on weekday morning sends. Try alternatives occasionally and compare.