Sending an email is only the beginning. Shape’s email reporting tools help you understand what happened afterward.
Users and managers can track individual emails, review opens and clicks, monitor bulk campaigns, find bounced or failed messages, manage unsubscribes, and analyze email activity down to the individual record. For multi-branch organizations, Shape also provides centralized campaign reporting, so Corporate users can monitor email activity across their branches without logging into each one.
What can you track with Shape email reporting?
Shape can show you:
- Total emails sent, delivered, opened, and clicked
- Open rate, click-through rate, and bounce rate
- Bounces and failed emails
- Unsubscribes and complaints
- Send method, email template, subject line, sender, and recipient
- Date sent, opened, and clicked
- Campaign progress, status, and scheduled and completed dates
You can use these metrics at several levels, from one customer’s engagement history to a bulk campaign sent to thousands of records.
Which email report should I use?
Shape has several email reports because different questions need different levels of detail.
| If you want to understand… | Use… |
|---|---|
| Individual emails, including opens, clicks, and delivery | Email Performance Report |
| Performance across a group of templates or folders | Email Performance Report |
| A bulk email campaign | Bulk Email Report |
| Bulk campaigns across multiple branches | Cross-Branch Email Campaign Report |
| Bounced or failed emails | Failed/Bounced Email Report |
| Who has opted out of communication | Opt-Out Tracking Report |
| A contact’s overall email engagement | List page email engagement columns |
| Email activity for one specific contact | The record’s Contact Log |
Each report answers a different question, so their numbers won’t always match. See Why do counts differ between reports? below.
Email Performance Report
The Email Performance Report (also called the Outgoing Email Report) shows detailed information about emails sent through Shape. It’s the best place to start when you need to investigate email activity at the individual-message level.
You can filter the report by user, team, template, send method, status, and date range. The report also shows high-level metrics for what you’ve selected: Total Emails, Open Rate, Click-Through Rate, Bounce Rate, and Total Unsubscribes.
Choosing templates
You can choose which templates to include in three ways:
- Select All Templates to report on every email template
- Select one or more template folders to include every template in those folders
- Select individual templates for a more specific report
The report combines the results for whatever you select. For example, select your Nurture folder to see how your whole nurture series is performing, without picking each template one by one.
Email performance details
For each email, the report can show:
- Template name, record ID, recipient, and recipient email
- Sender and the address it was sent from
- Email subject and send method
- Status
- Date sent, opened, and clicked
- Rejected, failed, and bounce dates
- Response and available actions
That makes the report useful both for broad performance analysis and for troubleshooting individual messages.
How is bounce rate calculated?
Shape’s bounce rate counts every email that wasn’t delivered, including emails the recipient’s mail provider refused. If Gmail, Yahoo, or another provider rejects an email, Shape counts it, because the email never reached the recipient.
A high bounce rate usually points to one of two things:
- Bad email addresses, such as old, mistyped, or made-up addresses
- An email authentication problem, where mail providers refuse your email because of your domain’s settings
If your bounce rate is high across many recipients at once, especially on Gmail and Yahoo, check your domain’s DMARC settings first. See Understanding DMARC Policies.
Understanding send method
The send method shows how an email was generated: by a user, a trigger, a drip campaign, a bulk campaign, or another automated workflow.
This is especially helpful when troubleshooting. If a customer received an email you weren’t expecting, the send method tells you whether it came from a person or an automated process.
Tracking email opens
When Shape receives an open event, the report records the email as opened and shows the Date Opened. Shape also calculates an Open Rate for the selected emails.
Open tracking is useful for spotting general engagement trends, but it isn’t proof that a specific person read an email. Email providers, privacy features, and image handling can all affect how opens are recorded. Treat opens as one signal alongside clicks, replies, calls, and other CRM activity.
Tracking email clicks
When a recipient clicks a tracked link, Shape records it and shows the Date Clicked. The report also calculates a Click-Through Rate.
Clicks are especially useful because they show recipients interacting with your content, not just receiving it. For example, you might prioritize follow-up with prospects who clicked an application link, scheduling link, product or pricing page, or another call to action.
Email engagement columns on list pages
You don’t have to open a report to see engagement. List pages can show columns for a contact’s email history.
Total Opened Emails counts how many individual emails sent to the record have at least one open. With 10 emails sent and 7 opened, it shows 7, even if one email was opened several times.
Total Clicked Emails counts how many individual emails have at least one link click. With 10 emails sent and 3 clicked, it shows 3, even if someone clicked several links in one email.
Add Total Emails Sent, Total Opened Emails, and Total Clicked Emails to a list view to quickly tell apart a contact who has received ten emails with no engagement from one who has opened and clicked several. It’s an easy way to prioritize follow-up.
Bulk Email Report
The Bulk Email Report is built for campaigns sent to larger audiences. Instead of listing every email as its own row, it shows each campaign as a whole.
Depending on the campaign, it can show:
- Initiation, scheduled, and completed dates
- Template name and subject line
- Who initiated it
- Sent, delivered, failed, bounced, and processed counts
- Opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and complaints
- Progress, status, and available actions
Initiation, scheduled, and completed dates
- Initiation Date: when the campaign was submitted
- Scheduled Date: when the campaign was set to start sending. If Send Immediately was selected, this can match the Initiation Date.
- Completed Date: when the campaign finished processing
These dates help when reviewing campaigns prepared in advance, or when you need to know exactly when a send happened.
Template name and custom content
The report shows the email template the campaign used. If the user wrote the email without a saved template, it shows Custom Content.
Unsubscribes in the Bulk Email Report
The Bulk Email Report’s unsubscribe count only covers that one bulk send. It includes recipients who unsubscribed from that email, plus emails in the send that failed because the recipient had already opted out of email. Because it only looks at one send, its numbers won’t match reports that cover a whole date range. See Why do counts differ between reports? below.
Progress and status
Larger campaigns take time to process. The Progress indicator shows how much of the campaign has been processed, so you can tell whether it hasn’t started, is in progress, is almost done, or has finished, instead of assuming something is wrong.
Campaign statuses include Queued, In Progress, Completed, Paused, and Canceled.
Pause, resume, and cancel
Depending on the campaign’s status, authorized users can:
- Preview the email
- Pause remaining processing
- Resume a paused campaign
- Cancel remaining messages
Emails already sent before a pause or cancellation can’t be recalled. These controls are especially valuable if someone spots a problem with a large campaign after it starts.
Cross-Branch Email Campaign Report
Multi-branch organizations have an extra need: Corporate users want to monitor campaigns across branches without logging into each one. The Cross-Branch Email Campaign Report shows bulk email activity across all the branches a Corporate user can access.
It can show the date, CRM ID, template, who initiated it, status, sent, delivered, failed, processed, opens, clicks, unsubscribes, complaints, remarks, and actions. The CRM ID tells you which branch sent the campaign.
With it, Corporate teams can quickly answer questions like:
- What campaigns are being sent right now, and by which branch?
- Who initiated each campaign?
- How many emails were sent and delivered?
- Are there failures or complaints?
- Is a campaign still processing, or does it need to be paused or canceled?
Where a campaign’s status and the user’s access allow it, Corporate users can also Preview, Pause, Resume, or Cancel branch campaigns from this report. For example, if a campaign is going out from the wrong branch or has content that needs fixing, a Corporate user can stop the remaining sends.
Failed/Bounced Email Report
The Failed/Bounced Email Report helps you find email addresses and messages that need attention. It’s especially useful for cleaning up your data and protecting deliverability.
It shows details like the template, record ID, recipient and email address, sender, subject, send method, status, and dates. You can filter by record type, campaign, date, and opt-out method. For example, choose Email Unsubscribe as the opt-out method to see only emails that failed because the recipient had unsubscribed.
Find where bounces are coming from
The report shows whether each email was sent manually, by a trigger, or by a drip campaign. If bounces suddenly spike, that narrows the investigation. A spike tied to one automated campaign needs a different fix than a few mistyped addresses.
Clean up bounced email addresses
Sending again to an address you know is bad doesn’t help. Authorized users can unsubscribe bounced addresses in bulk:
- Filter the Email Performance Report for bounced emails.
- Review the affected records.
- Select the recipients.
- Apply Email Unsubscribe.
Automate bounce cleanup
Shape tracks email bounce events, so you can use them in triggers. When an email bounces, a trigger can add an Email Bounce tag, update the record’s email communication preference, move the record into a data-cleanup workflow, or notify a user to collect a new email address.
Example: Email bounces → add the tag Email Bounce → update the email communication preference → create a task: request an updated email address.
Understanding email metrics
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Sent | Emails submitted for sending |
| Delivered | Emails accepted by the recipient’s mail provider |
| Failed | Emails that weren’t successful during sending, including emails refused by the recipient’s mail provider |
| Bounced | Emails that couldn’t be delivered and returned a bounce |
| Processed | Emails Shape or the email service has processed as part of the campaign |
| Opens | Emails with tracked open activity |
| Clicks | Emails with tracked link clicks |
| Unsubscribes | Recipients who unsubscribed from email |
| Complaints | Recipients who marked the email as spam |
| Bounce rate | Emails that weren’t delivered, including bounced and refused emails, as a percentage of emails sent |
These counts don’t always form a simple funnel, so look at them together rather than expecting each one to flow neatly into the next.
Why do counts differ between reports?
It’s common to see a different unsubscribe or bounce count in each report, even for the same date range. That’s usually because each report answers a different question.
| Report | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Bulk Email Report | Activity for one bulk send only. Unsubscribes include recipients who unsubscribed from that email and emails in the send that failed because the recipient had already opted out. Counts come from the email logs for that send. |
| Email Performance Report | Every email that matches your filters, from any send method: manual, triggers, drips, and bulk sends |
| Failed/Bounced Email Report | Only emails that failed or bounced, which you can narrow by opt-out method |
| Opt-Out Tracking Report | Contacts and their current opt-out status, not individual emails |
A few things commonly cause differences:
- Different scope. A bulk send report only covers that one send. The Email Performance Report covers every email in your date range, including manual, trigger, and drip emails.
- Emails vs. people. Some reports count emails, and others count contacts. One contact who received three emails can show up three times in one report and once in another.
- Opting back in. If a contact unsubscribed and later opted back in, the bulk send still shows the unsubscribe, but reports based on current status won’t.
- Different filters. Make sure the date range, templates, users, and send methods match before comparing.
If you’ve matched your filters and the numbers still don’t make sense, reach out to Shape Support with screenshots of each report and the filters you used.
Why is Shape’s bounce rate different from my email provider’s?
Shape and your email provider can define a bounce differently. Shape counts every email that wasn’t delivered, including emails the recipient’s mail provider refused. Some email providers only count certain kinds of bounces, so their bounce rate can be much lower than Shape’s for the same emails.
If Shape shows a much higher bounce rate than your provider, it usually means mail providers are refusing your emails. Check the failure reasons in the Email Performance or Failed/Bounced Email Report. If they mention DMARC, your domain’s email authentication settings need attention. See Understanding DMARC Policies.
Using email reporting to improve your data
Email reporting can also point to problems in your contact database. Watch for:
- High bounces from a particular import
- Poor-quality addresses from a lead provider
- One campaign with unusually high failures
- Old records with outdated email addresses
- Users entering addresses incorrectly
These patterns can help you decide when to use Email Validation before sending to larger audiences.
Using email reporting for sales and marketing
Sales teams care about individual contacts. A salesperson may want to know that one prospect clicked three of the last five emails. Use the Email Performance Report for message detail, Total Opened and Total Clicked Emails for quick record-level context, and the Contact Log for a record’s full history.
Marketing teams care about campaigns. Compare volume, delivery, opens, clicks, unsubscribes, complaints, bounces, and template performance. Then connect those numbers with lead source, campaign, and status data to see what recipients did next. A click is useful; a recipient who clicked and then moved through your pipeline is even more meaningful.
Email reporting best practices
Choose the report based on your question. Troubleshooting one email? Use the Email Performance Report. Evaluating a campaign? Use the Bulk Email Report. Overseeing branches? Use Cross-Branch reporting. Cleaning up bad addresses? Start with the Failed/Bounced Email Report.
Match your filters before comparing reports. Use the same date range, templates, users, and send methods, and remember each report counts a different scope.
Don’t judge engagement by opens alone. Opens are one signal. Clicks, replies, calls, appointments, and status changes add context.
Pay attention to clicks. A click shows stronger interest. Use Total Clicked Emails or click tracking to prioritize follow-up.
Watch your bounce rate. A sudden jump across many recipients usually means mail providers are refusing your emails. Check your domain authentication right away.
Check the send method when troubleshooting. Knowing whether an email came from a user, trigger, drip, or bulk campaign narrows the investigation.
Monitor large campaigns. Use Progress and Status instead of assuming a campaign is stuck, and pause or cancel remaining sends if something’s wrong.
Connect engagement to results. The goal of business email isn’t opens. Use Shape’s other reports to see whether engaged recipients responded, scheduled an appointment, moved forward, or closed.
Frequently asked questions
Can Shape track email opens and clicks?+
Yes. Shape tracks opens and link clicks and shows open and click dates, open rates, click-through rates, and record-level counts.
What is Total Opened Emails?+
The number of individual emails that registered at least one open. It doesn’t count every open event.
What is Total Clicked Emails?+
The number of individual emails that registered at least one link click. It doesn’t count every click.
Where can I see one specific email?+
In the Email Performance Report or the record’s Contact Log.
Can I report on a whole folder of templates at once?+
Yes. In the Email Performance Report, select one or more template folders, or choose Select All Templates. You can still pick individual templates too.
How does Shape calculate bounce rate?+
Shape counts every email that wasn’t delivered, including emails the recipient’s mail provider refused, as a percentage of emails sent.
Why is Shape’s bounce rate higher than my email provider’s?+
Shape counts emails refused by mail providers like Gmail and Yahoo as bounces. Some providers don’t, so their bounce rate can be much lower. A big gap usually means mail providers are refusing your email, often because of your domain’s DMARC settings.
Why do my unsubscribe counts differ between reports?+
Each report counts a different scope. The Bulk Email Report covers one send only, the Email Performance Report covers every email in your filters, the Failed/Bounced Email Report only counts failed emails, and the Opt-Out Tracking Report shows contacts’ current opt-out status. Contacts who opted back in can also cause differences.
Where can I monitor a bulk email campaign?+
In the Bulk Email Report, which shows progress, status, sent, delivered, failed, bounced, opens, clicks, unsubscribes, and more.
Can I pause, resume, or cancel a bulk email campaign?+
Yes, when the campaign’s status allows it. Emails already sent can’t be recalled.
Can Corporate users monitor campaigns across branches?+
Yes. The Cross-Branch Email Campaign Report shows bulk campaigns across the branches a Corporate user can access, and lets them pause or cancel campaigns where allowed.
Can I see who started a bulk email and which template it used?+
Yes. The Bulk Email Report shows who initiated it and the template name. If no saved template was used, it shows Custom Content.
Can I bulk unsubscribe bounced email addresses?+
Yes. Authorized users can select bounced records in email reporting and apply Email Unsubscribe in bulk.
Can Shape automatically do something when an email bounces?+
Yes. Use a trigger to tag the record, update communication preferences, or create a follow-up task when an email bounces.
Can I export email reports?+
Export options depend on the report. The Email Performance Report and bulk email reporting support exports where available.
Understand what happens after you hit send
Shape’s email reporting gives every team the view it needs. Sales users can see whether a contact is engaging. Managers can review activity by user, team, template, and send method. Marketing teams can evaluate delivery, opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes across whole folders of templates. Corporate teams can monitor campaigns across branches and step in when needed.
And when the numbers point to a problem, like a spike in bounces, Shape’s bounce tracking, bulk actions, Email Validation, communication preferences, and automation give you ways to fix it.
Need help? Email help@setshape.com or call Support at (888) 718-6344.
Related guides: Bulk Email · Email Templates · Understanding DMARC Policies · Email Domain Authentication · Drip Campaigns