How do you measure the results of an email campaign?
You measure an email campaign by checking whether it reached people, whether they acted on it, and whether that action led to the result you sent it for. Most email platforms already collect the numbers. The trouble is that they sit in a dashboard nobody opens, so a team sends a newsletter every two weeks for a year without ever learning which ones worked.
The numbers fall into three groups:
- Delivery. How many emails were sent, how many bounced, and whether the bounces were permanent (a hard bounce, such as an address that no longer exists) or temporary (a soft bounce, such as a full inbox).
- Engagement. How many people opened the email, how many clicked a link, and which links they clicked.
- Reaction to the list itself. How many people unsubscribed and how many marked the email as spam. These tell you whether the list still wants to hear from you.
Each number means something different depending on what the email was for. A product announcement lives or dies by clicks to the new feature. A newsletter meant to keep you top of mind can have a modest click rate and still be doing its job, as long as unsubscribes stay low. So a good report starts with the email's purpose and reads the numbers against it.
That reading is where most of the work is, and it's a good job for an AI agent. Pulling numbers from a platform is easy. Comparing every send with the ones before it, noticing that bounces jumped after a list import, or seeing that one link got half of all clicks takes patience and regular attention. An agent gives it that attention every time a campaign goes out.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Here's how it reports on your email campaigns.
How Kite reports on email campaign performance
Kite starts by connecting to the email platform you already send from, whether that's Mailchimp, Brevo, or HubSpot. It reads the results for every campaign you've sent, so its first report already has your history in it.
For each campaign, Kite reads delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints, along with what the email said and who it went to. It compares the campaign with your earlier sends of the same kind and explains what stands out. When something looks wrong, such as a spike in bounces, it digs into the details to find the cause.
Kite then tells you what the numbers mean in plain language and what to change in the next email. You can ask for a report whenever you want one, or agree on a schedule and have it arrive in the Kite web app, in Slack, or by email.
- Pull the numbers out of your email platform
- Read each number for what it actually tells you
- Find out why bounces are high
- Connect email results to pipeline and revenue
- Get a plain report on a schedule
- Use what you learn in the next email
Pull the numbers out of your email platform
Kite reads campaign results directly from your connected email platform, so nobody has to export a spreadsheet or copy figures into a slide. What it can see depends on the platform.
In Mailchimp, Kite reads the full report for each sent campaign. That includes sends, hard and soft bounces, opens, clicks, unsubscribes, spam complaints, and any ecommerce revenue Mailchimp tracked. It can also see clicks for each link, results by recipient email domain, the results of each version in an A/B test, and up to 180 days of daily activity for an audience.
In Brevo, Kite lists your email campaigns and reads each one's statistics alongside its content and recipients. In HubSpot, it reads statistics for your marketing emails, either for one email, a group of emails, or every email in a date range. It can also break those statistics into weekly or monthly intervals, which makes trends easy to spot.
Kite also reads what each email said. Seeing the subject line and body next to the results lets it say more than "clicks went down." It can say that the email with a single clear link got twice the clicks of the one with six.
Read each number for what it actually tells you
Kite reads each number against your own history and the email's purpose, and it treats open rates with caution. That combination keeps the report from celebrating numbers that don't mean much.
Open rates need the most care. Since 2021, Apple Mail has loaded emails in the background for many of its users, and every one of those loads counts as an open whether or not a person read the email. Because Apple Mail is common, your open rate may look healthy even when few people read the email. Kite uses opens as a rough signal and gives more weight to clicks, which require a person to act.
Kite compares each campaign with your earlier sends of the same kind. A monthly newsletter is compared with your other newsletters, not with a one-off sale announcement. If your newsletters usually get a 3 percent click rate and the latest got 1.2 percent, Kite says so and looks for the reason. It might be a weaker subject line, a different send day, a list that grew with less engaged subscribers, or a main link buried halfway down the email.
Clicks for each link show what readers actually wanted. If a newsletter had five links and the case study got 70 percent of the clicks, that tells you what to lead with next time.
Find out why bounces are high
When bounces rise, Kite looks at what kind of bounce they are and where they came from. Those two details usually point straight at the cause.
Hard bounces mean the address is invalid or no longer exists. A jump in hard bounces usually means old or imported addresses got onto the list. If the bounces cluster in a campaign sent right after you added a batch of contacts, Kite points that out and suggests cleaning those contacts before the next send. Your email platform normally stops sending to hard-bounced addresses on its own, but the damage to your sender reputation happens on the first send.
Soft bounces are temporary failures, such as a full mailbox or a receiving server that turned the email away. When soft bounces concentrate at one receiving domain, such as Gmail or Outlook addresses, the problem is often how that provider sees your sending domain rather than the addresses themselves. In Mailchimp, Kite can see results broken out by recipient domain, which makes that pattern visible. When it finds one, Kite tells you which provider is turning your mail away and recommends checking your domain's authentication settings in your email platform.
Spam complaints get the same attention. Google and Yahoo require bulk senders to keep complaint rates below 0.3 percent, and a rate near that line is worth acting on before it affects every future send. Kite flags rising complaints and looks at which campaign and which part of the list they came from.
Connect email results to pipeline and revenue
Clicks show interest, but the real question for most campaigns is what happened next. Kite connects email results to the outcomes your other tools record when the data is available.
In HubSpot, Kite can read the metrics for a marketing campaign that groups your emails with landing pages and forms, along with a revenue attribution report for that campaign. That lets it answer whether last month's nurture emails led to deals, not just clicks. In Mailchimp, Kite reads the ecommerce revenue tied to each campaign when your store is connected to Mailchimp.
When Kite also has access to your website analytics, it can see whether the people who clicked went on to sign up or buy. That turns "the launch email got 400 clicks" into "the launch email brought 400 visitors and 31 trial signups."
Get a plain report on a schedule
Kite delivers each report as a short summary in plain language, with the numbers behind it. You can ask for one at any time, or agree on a schedule so the report arrives without anyone remembering to ask.
A typical report says what was sent, how each campaign did compared with your usual results, what stood out, and what to change. For example: "Tuesday's newsletter reached 4,180 people. Clicks were 2.1 percent, below your usual 2.8 percent, and most of them went to the pricing link at the bottom. Bounces were normal. Next time, move the pricing link to the top and test a subject line that names the price change."
Kite can schedule the report weekly, monthly, or after each campaign. Results go to a Slack channel you choose, arrive by email from your team's Kite address, or stay in the Kite web app as their own conversation. When a summary isn't enough, Kite can publish the report as a page with charts and tables at a shared link, which is useful for a monthly review with your team or a client.
Use what you learn in the next email
Kite records what each report teaches it, so the next email starts from your results instead of from general advice. Subject lines that worked, links that drew clicks, send days that did well, and segments that stopped responding all go into your team's knowledge base.
When Kite writes your next campaign, it uses those findings. If questions in subject lines have beaten statements three times in a row, the next draft leads with a question. If a segment hasn't clicked in four months, Kite suggests a re-engagement email to that group or removing it from regular sends. Kite asks for your approval before any email goes out.
What you get
A campaign report
Delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints for each campaign, compared with your earlier sends of the same kind.
A plain explanation of what changed
What stood out in each campaign and the most likely reason, written so anyone on the team can follow it.
A diagnosis when something goes wrong
The type and source of rising bounces or complaints, and what to fix before the next send.
The link to results
Revenue and pipeline tied to your campaigns where HubSpot or Mailchimp records it, and signups or purchases where your analytics show them.
A recommendation for the next email
What to keep, what to change, and what to test, based on your own results.
A scheduled delivery
The report on the schedule you choose, in Slack, by email, or in the Kite web app, with a shareable report page when you need more detail.
How to get started
Connect the email platform you send from, then ask Kite for a report. You might say, "How did our last five newsletters do?" or "Why are our bounces so high this month?" or "Send me a summary of our email results every Monday." You can work with Kite in the Kite web app or in Slack.
Kite reads your campaign history and comes back with a first report. It tells you which campaigns it compared and why, so you can correct it if, for example, two very different emails got grouped together. If you want regular reports, Kite proposes a schedule and a place to send them, and you confirm it.
Connect Mailchimp, Brevo, or HubSpot to give Kite your email results. If your campaigns run through HubSpot, Kite can also read the campaign and revenue data that sits alongside your emails. When you want Kite to see what happened after the click, connect your website analytics as well.
Integrations used to report on email campaign performance
Kite reads email results from the platform you already send from. Each one exposes slightly different detail, and Kite uses whatever your platform provides.
Read campaign results
Kite reads the full report for each sent campaign, including hard and soft bounces, opens, clicks for each link, unsubscribes, spam complaints, results by recipient domain, A/B test versions, and ecommerce revenue.
Kite lists your email campaigns and reads each one's statistics, content, and recipients, so it can compare results across sends.
Common questions
What is a good open rate and click rate for marketing emails?
Benchmarks published by email platforms usually put average open rates somewhere between 20 and 40 percent and click rates between 1 and 3 percent, with wide differences by industry and list. Bounce rates under 2 percent are generally considered healthy. Treat these as a rough check rather than a goal, because opens are inflated by Apple Mail and every list is different. The more useful comparison is your own history: Kite tells you whether a campaign did better or worse than your usual results for that kind of email. For a closer look at benchmarks and what to check when your numbers drop, see What is a good email open rate? Benchmarks for small teams, and what to check when yours drops Coming soon .
Can Kite review an email before I send it?
Yes. Kite can read a draft and suggest changes to the subject line, the opening, the call to action, and the number of links, using what your past campaigns showed works for your readers. It can also write several subject lines for you to test against each other. Because it has read your results, its suggestions come from your audience rather than general rules.
Does Kite track opens and clicks for emails it sends itself?
For emails Kite sends from your team's Kite address, such as outreach to prospects, it reports which messages were accepted, which failed, and who replied. Open, click, and bounce reports come from the email platform that sent the campaign, which is why Kite reads them from Mailchimp, Brevo, or HubSpot.
How often should I review email performance?
Review each important campaign a few days after it goes out, once most opens and clicks have come in, and look at trends across campaigns monthly. A weekly or monthly scheduled report from Kite covers both: it summarizes the campaigns sent since the last report and flags any that fell well outside your usual range.
Can Kite combine results from more than one email platform?
Yes. If you send newsletters from Mailchimp and nurture emails from HubSpot, connect both and Kite reads each one's results. It reports them together and keeps the comparisons fair by comparing each campaign with earlier sends of the same kind.