Total Campaign Opens vs Unique Opens

[Anonymous]

Hi folks,

Question for you today. When running an email program and reporting on it via the email performance report we are given a total number of unique opens for each email and totals all of these opens at the bottom. (See below)

However, I'm looking for the total number of unique opens across the whole campaign. I can build out a smart list & smart campaign to track this, but find that the number does not equal out to the number in my email report. (See below)

Smart Campaign:

Smart List:

I read in a different stream that this is due to the email report tracking some pixel while the smart list & campaign do not. So my question is, is there a way to track unique values across the whole campaign or am I destined to have 90% of the data?

I can reference a campaign with more than one email for a better example if needed.

Thank you,

Matthew Wucher

[Anonymous]

Hi Matt -

You are not the only person who has had this question

I want to make sure I understand your question above.  You are asking why the total number of opens in your email performance report is showing 53, versus the 43 in your smart list?

Also, I was trying to read your smart campaign filters but it's a little small.  Is the email referenced in your email performance report only used within one program?

Thank you!

Christine

[Anonymous]

Hi Christine,

Thanks for the feedback. So I understand why there's a discrepancy between the email performance report and the smart list. I read that it had to do with a pixel tracking that is accounted for in the email performance report. However, I'm wondering how I can find the total unique opens across the whole campaign if the smart list doesn't track with 100% efficiency and the email performance report only counts unique's per email and not across the whole campaign.

Yes, the email referenced is only used with this one program.

Thank you!

Matthew Wucher

[Anonymous]

Hi Matt - can you clarify what you mean by 'whole campaign'?  Your email performance report is referencing one email but your opens smart campaign has 8 emails listed.

Sorry for all the questions, just want to make sure I understand what you are trying to gain visibility into.

Thank you! 

[Anonymous]

Hi Christine,

In this example we've only sent out 1 of our 8 emails. The remaining 7 emails will go out across the next few weeks. What I'm looking for is tracking the total unique leads who have opened an email at the end of the campaign (after all 8 emails are sent). The smart campaign and smart list seem to bring me the closest to this answer. 

Thank you!

[SanfordWhiteman]

A lead who clicks a link in an email but does not actually look at the HTML version with images enabled is still considered an Open from the standpoint of the EP Report. (In real-world terms, they must -- leaving automated mail scanners out of the picture for the moment -- have actually looked at the message before clicking, so that's an implied open.)

Your SC only tracks literal Opened Email events, not the implied opens used in the EP Report.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

The count for total opens and unique open will always be different.

The difference between the two types of opens is that Unique opens is defined as the number of the distinct recipients that have opened your campaign. Putting it simply, for each recipient that has opened your campaign, only one open is added to the Unique opens sum, no matter how many times the recipient has opened and reopened the newsletter they received.
The Total opens number on the other hand equals the total number of times that your campaign has been opened by all the recipients who have received it.

So, if a single recipient loved your campaign so much that they came back and opened it 6 times, We will record 1 Unique open and 6 Total opens.

[SanfordWhiteman]

Please reread the question: you'll see the delta is in the opposite direction from your example.

The correct explanation is in my answer above, from 2 months ago.