How to calculate email marketing reach and read campaign results

Start by defining reach

For this guide, reach means distinct email addresses with a recorded delivery during a chosen period. It is an operational measure, not proof that a person read the email or that it landed in the inbox. An address is not necessarily one person. Choose the campaign and reporting period before comparing results.

Five numbers that answer different questions

• Audience: contacts eligible for the campaign. List size alone does not show how many emails were sent.
• Sent: messages counted as sent in the campaign report; some may later bounce or remain deferred.
• Delivered: recorded deliveries. Pending events and later status changes can affect this count.
• Unique opens and clicks: recipients with at least one tracked event in that campaign. Total events can count the same recipient repeatedly.
• Conversions: a separately recorded outcome, such as a signup or purchase. A click alone does not prove a sale.

A worked example, not customer results

Suppose a completed campaign shows 1,000 sent, 950 delivered, 300 unique opens, 40 unique clicks and 65 total clicks. Its recorded delivery rate is 950 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 95%. MBX Reach displays the unique open and click rates using sent as the denominator: 30% and 4%. Calculating clicks over delivered would give about 4.21%; label that calculation separately so you do not compare different formulas.

Calculate reach across several campaigns

If campaign A reaches 950 addresses and campaign B reaches 800, with 600 addresses in both groups, the combined reach is 950 + 800 − 600 = 1,150 distinct addresses, not 1,750. For more campaigns, count the union of delivered recipient addresses over the same period. Campaign totals alone cannot tell you the overlap. Do not describe a sum of deliveries as unique people reached.

Where to look in MBX Reach

Open Campaigns and select a campaign report. Review sent and delivered first, then the unique open and click counts and the link breakdown. The campaign summary CSV includes delivered, opened_people, opens, clicked_people and clicks. These are campaign-level figures; adding CSV rows does not deduplicate recipients across campaigns. This guide does not imply that the panel provides a cross-campaign unique-reach total.

Interpret tracking carefully

Image loading and privacy protections make opens an imperfect measure of reading. Automated link checking can also affect clicks. If tracking is disabled or events are missing, an absent event does not prove no one read the email. Compare campaigns with similar tracking settings and enough time for delivery events to arrive. Use separately verified signups or purchases to evaluate business results.

What to improve next

If deliveries fall, inspect bounce reasons and the source of the audience. If delivered emails get few clicks, check the offer, link and call to action. Change one element at a time and compare similar audiences and reporting windows.

Related guides

Create your first campaign ↗

Understand bounces and complaints ↗

Manage your audience ↗

MBX Reach is email marketing for small teams: lists, campaigns, automations and reports, in six languages.