Overview

Your newsletter's engagement metrics tell you whether your content is landing with your audience. This article explains what each metric means, how it is calculated, and most importantly, what you can do to improve it.

Understanding each metric

Open rate

What it is: the percentage of recipients who opened the newsletter.

How it's calculated: tracked as unique per user. If the same person opens the newsletter from both email and SMS, they are counted once in the open rate percentage.

Where to find it: in the analytics view of any sent newsletter, and in the Activity Dashboard.

Click-through rate (CTR)

What it is: the percentage of recipients who clicked at least one link or element in the newsletter.

How it's calculated:

Number of recipients who clicked at least one link ÷ total recipients × 100 = CTR %

Where to find it: in the analytics view of any sent newsletter, and in the Activity Dashboard.

Opens by type

What it is: a breakdown of which channel (email, SMS, in-app) was used to open the newsletter.

Note: a single user can appear in multiple channels if they opened from more than one source. For example, 10 recipients but 12 opens by type means 2 recipients opened from 2 different channels. In-app notification clicks are also tracked, with each source recorded separately.

Unique clicks by type

What it is: the number of individual recipients who clicked a specific element. Each person is counted once per element, regardless of how many times they clicked it.

Time spent

What it is: the total time recipients spent on the intranet after clicking a newsletter link. This is calculated as the sum of the time spent by all users who clicked on that particular element.

How it's tracked: time spent is recorded when a user clicks a newsletter link and lands on a Simpplr page. The system tracks how long the user stays on that page and associates the time with the clicked link (element).

Time cap: the maximum recorded time per user, per link, is capped at 30 minutes.

• Example: if a user clicks a content link and stays on the page for 2 hours, only 30 minutes is recorded.

• If the user clicks multiple links, up to 30 minutes can be recorded for each link clicked.

Downloading a CSV report

You can download a CSV file containing metrics on opens and bounces.

• Bounces occur when a newsletter email was not successfully delivered to the recipient's inbox. Common causes include the recipient's email address not existing, a full inbox, or server outages.

How to diagnose engagement problems

Use this table to identify what your metrics are telling you and what to do next:

How to improve open rates – step by step

1. Optimise your subject line

• Keep subject lines under 50 characters for better inbox visibility.

• Use clear, benefit-driven language.

• Try personalising with recipient merge fields (e.g. "Hi [First Name], this week's update is here").

• Use the AI subject line generator to get tone-matched suggestions based on your newsletter content.

2. Optimise your preview text

• Customise the preview text that appears alongside the subject line in recipients' inboxes.

• Use it to reinforce the subject line and give recipients a reason to open.

3. Test your send time

• Experiment with different days and times.

• Consider your employees' typical working hours and time zones.

4. Promote the newsletter internally

• Use Slack, Microsoft Teams, or intranet posts to remind employees about the newsletter and its value.

How to improve CTR – step by step

1. Use the heatmap to find weak spots

• Open the Heatmap tab for any sent newsletter.

• Identify which blocks have low or zero click share.

• Replace or reposition underperforming content in future sends.

2. Strengthen your calls-to-action

• Use action-oriented language: "Read the full story", "Register now", "See the results".

• Make CTAs visually distinct use the Button block rather than plain text links.

3. Personalise content

• Use dynamic content blocks to surface content tailored to each recipient.

• Segment your audience and send targeted newsletters to specific departments or locations.

4. Add interactive elements

• Include survey blocks to drive participation.

• Include recognition blocks to celebrate team achievements and encourage clicks.

5. Review layout and design

• Use a clean, easy-to-navigate layout with clear headings and short paragraphs.

• Ensure the newsletter is mobile-friendly many employees read on their phones.

Tracking improvement over time

1. After making changes, send the next newsletter and wait for analytics to populate.

2. Compare the new newsletter's open rate and CTR against previous sends in the Activity Dashboard.

3. Use the performance over time chart to confirm whether your changes are having a positive effect.

Repeat the process continuous, iterative improvement is the key to a high-performing newsletter programme.

A note on the activity dashboard

Newsletter managers often struggle to understand how their content resonates with an audience over time. The Activity Dashboard was introduced to solve this, giving you ongoing performance tracking and analysis rather than a one-off snapshot per send. It includes:

• Hero metrics: newsletters sent (with period comparison), average open rate (open emails ÷ sent emails, with comparison), and average click-through rate (unique clicks ÷ sent emails, with comparison).

• A performance over time chart.

• A sent newsletters table, showing:

  • Dimensions: newsletter name, date sent, and recipients (count).

  • Metrics: open rate and click-through rate.

• A Show more button, which loads 25 additional newsletters at a time.

Note on variance: due to the analytics rendering engine, you may notice up to a 1% variance between the data shown in an individual newsletter's Analytics/Heatmap tabs and the data seen in the CSV download or on the Activity Dashboard.

Historical user data

Employee Newsletter (ENL) data behaves differently from most other data on the Simpplr platform. While most Simpplr data reflects a user's current profile information, such as their current department and location, ENL data reflects the user's information at the time the event occurred.

For example, if a user was sent a newsletter a year ago while in the "Accounting" department and has since moved to "Finance," filtering by the Accounting dimension will continue to show that user's historical interactions under Accounting.

Frequently asked questions

Q: If a recipient opens my newsletter from both email and their phone, does that count as two opens?

Ans: No. Open rate is tracked as unique per user, so a recipient who opens the newsletter from multiple sources is only counted once in the open rate percentage.

Q: How exactly is CTR calculated?

Ans: CTR is calculated as the number of recipients who clicked at least one link, divided by total recipients, multiplied by 100.

Q: Why do "opens by type" sometimes add up to more than my total recipients?

Ans: Because a single user can appear under multiple channels if they opened the newsletter from more than one source. For example, 10 recipients but 12 opens by type simply means 2 recipients opened from two different channels.

Q: Is there a limit on how much "time spent" gets recorded per link?

Ans: Yes. The maximum recorded time per user, per link, is capped at 30 minutes, even if the user actually stayed on the page longer.

Q: What causes a newsletter email to bounce?

Ans: Bounces typically happen when the recipient's email address doesn't exist, their inbox is full, or there's a server outage preventing delivery.

Q: My open rate is high but my CTR is low. What does that usually mean?

Ans: This pattern usually means your subject line is working well, but the content itself isn't delivering on what it promised. Try aligning your content more closely with your subject line.

Q: Why might my CSV download show slightly different numbers than the Activity Dashboard?

Ans: This is expected. Due to how the analytics rendering engine processes data, you may see up to a 1% variance between the individual newsletter Analytics/Heatmap tabs and the CSV download or Activity Dashboard.

Q: If an employee changes departments, will old newsletter analytics update to reflect their new department?

Ans: No. ENL data reflects a user's profile information at the time the event occurred, not their current profile, so historical interactions will continue to show under the department they belonged to at that time.

Q: What's the quickest way to start improving a newsletter with low engagement?

Ans: Start with the diagnosis table to identify whether the issue is with opens, clicks, or both, then work through the relevant step-by-step improvement section — subject lines and send times for open rate, or CTAs, personalisation, and layout for CTR.