Mailchimp Reports: Turning Campaign Data into Decisions
Report on Mailchimp campaigns beyond open rates: the numbers to track, why opens mislead, how to compare campaigns fairly and how to automate a monthly summary.
· 4 min read · Summarix team
A useful Mailchimp report looks past open rates to the numbers that show whether email works for your business: clicks, unsubscribes, bounces and, if your store is connected, revenue. Import your campaign reports, compare campaigns of the same kind with totals rather than averages of percentages, and send a monthly summary that ends with one or two decisions about what to send next.
What you can import from Mailchimp
Summarix connects to Mailchimp with an API key (the one that ends in your data centre, such as -us21) and imports one of two things per connection:
| Import | One row per | Useful fields |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign reports | Sent campaign | Campaign title, audience name, subject line, emails sent, unsubscribes, abuse reports, send time, bounces, opens, clicks, and e-commerce totals where available |
| Audiences | Audience (list) | Name, date created, member count, unsubscribe count and the audience's average open and click rates |
Nested fields become columns with dotted names, such as `opens.open_rate` or `clicks.unique_clicks`. Neither import brings in individual subscribers: you get campaign and audience figures, not names or email addresses. Choose how often to sync: manually, hourly, daily or weekly.
Why open rates mislead
An open is recorded when a tracking image loads. Some mail apps now load images automatically to protect their users' privacy, which records an 'open' whether or not anyone read the email, while others block images, which hides real opens. The result is that open rates are inflated for some audiences and understated for others, and they shift when people change apps. Treat opens as a rough signal and avoid using them to pick winners.
The numbers worth tracking
| Measure | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Delivered | Emails sent − bounces | How many people the campaign could reach |
| Click rate | Unique clicks ÷ delivered | Whether the content made people act |
| Unsubscribe rate | Unsubscribes ÷ delivered | Whether you are sending too much, or the wrong thing |
| Bounce rate | Bounces ÷ emails sent | List quality; hard bounces should be removed |
| Complaints | Abuse reports | Any at all is worth a look |
| Revenue per email | E-commerce revenue ÷ delivered | Value of a send, where your store reports orders |
The last line connects email to money, which is what most owners want to know. Our guide to marketing KPIs and ROI covers attribution, and the e-commerce KPIs guide covers what to do with the revenue figures once you have them.
Comparing campaigns fairly
- Compare like with like: a newsletter, a promotion and an automated welcome email behave differently. Group them by type before you compare.
- Use totals, not averages of rates: the average click rate of ten campaigns treats a send to 200 people like a send to 20,000. Total clicks divided by total delivered gives the true overall rate.
- Watch audience size: a small, engaged segment will always beat the whole list on rates, and may still produce fewer clicks.
- Note the timing: a send just before a public holiday or at month-end is not comparable with an ordinary Tuesday.
Summarix calculates each KPI from one column, so an 'average click rate' KPI is the simple average across campaigns. For the overall rate, show the total of delivered emails and the total of unique clicks side by side, and divide them in the summary, or add a column to a spreadsheet export first.
A monthly email report layout
- Summary: campaigns sent, total delivered, total clicks, unsubscribes, and revenue where available, against last month.
- Top five campaigns by unique clicks, with subject lines.
- Unsubscribes and bounces by campaign, to spot the sends that cost you subscribers.
- Audience sizes and growth, from the audiences import.
- One or two decisions: what to send more of, and what to stop.
On paid plans, a monthly schedule (any day from the 1st to the 28th) produces this from the synced data and emails it with the PDF and HTML attached; see scheduled email reports. A focus such as For the marketing meeting: emails sent, unique clicks and unsubscribes by campaign, top campaigns by clicks, and any campaign with high unsubscribes keeps each month's report comparable.
Connect Mailchimp and get a monthly email report that goes beyond open rates.
Free plan: 5 AI reports a month, no card needed.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Mailchimp import include subscriber details?
No. The two imports are campaign reports (one row per sent campaign) and audiences (one row per list, with counts and rates). Individual subscribers' names and email addresses are not imported.
Should we stop reporting open rates?
You can keep them as a rough signal, but do not use them to decide between campaigns or to judge a list's health. Automatic image loading in some mail apps records opens that never happened, so clicks and conversions are more reliable.
What is a good click rate?
It depends on your audience, list quality and what you send, so compare yourself with your own history rather than published averages. A steady or rising click rate on similar campaigns is a good sign; a falling one with rising unsubscribes is a warning.
Can I combine Mailchimp data with sales data?
Each report is built from one dataset. If your store reports orders to Mailchimp, the campaign reports may include e-commerce totals. Otherwise, export both, combine them in a spreadsheet by campaign or date, and upload the combined file.