We've made several updates to how email engagement metrics are calculated in Act-On Analytics and the Email Performance Report. These changes improve accuracy, help align metrics across reports, and make results more reflective of actual contact behavior.
What's Changing
These updates apply to data in both the Analytics dashboard and the Email Performance Report:
- Unique opens and clicks are now calculated across the full date range
- Engagement attribution improved for Personalized From messages
- Bot filtering now allows for more accurate "True Open" detection
- Opens now exclude bounced contacts
- Launch-based attribution adjusted for recurring Program Messages
You may still notice some differences between Analytics and message-level reports, but these updates help bring the numbers into closer alignment.
1. Unique Opens and Clicks Are Truly Unique
Previously, unique opens and clicks were counted per day. This inflated the totals in weekly or monthly reports.
What was the issue?
A contact who opened an email on two different days would be counted twice — even though the metric was labeled "unique."
How it works now:
We now calculate uniqueness over the full date range selected. Each contact is only counted once.
| Contact | Opened On | Counted As (Before) | Counted As (Now) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex | Mon, Wed | 2 unique opens | 1 unique open |
| Jordan | Tues | 1 unique open | 1 unique open |
| Casey | — | 0 | 0 |
This change improves long-range accuracy and removes artificial inflation.
2. Sender Attribution Is Now More Accurate
For messages sent using Personalized From, opens and clicks are now attributed to the correct sender.
What was the issue?
Previously, behavior wasn’t consistently tracked by sender — especially when multiple senders were used. While filtering by sender was always available, engagement metrics weren’t reliably broken out.
What’s changed:
Analytics now tracks opens and clicks by the actual sender, so you can better analyze how each rep, team, or region is performing.
Example:
“Which sales owner drove the most engagement on the Renewal Request campaign?”
For details on Personalized From setup, see: Personalized From Addresses
3. True Open: Better Detection of Human Engagement
Many email opens and clicks come from security scanners, not people. This affected the reliability of metrics labeled as human-driven. Act-On's True Open categorization of human vs. non-human activity (currently in beta) will soon be available as a filter for your Liveboards.
What was the issue?
Previously, the first recorded activity — even if from a bot — determined whether an email had been opened.
What’s changed:
Reports now update to reflect human engagement that occurs after a non-human interaction. This makes True Open more meaningful.
4. Opens Now Exclude Bounces
We’ve adjusted how opens are counted: bounced contacts are no longer included in open totals. This avoids confusion when comparing with delivery data or message-level reports.
5. Improved Attribution for Program Message Launches
When a Program Message is sent more than once to the same contact — such as during re-enrollment — engagement used to be attributed per launch.
What’s changed:
Opens and clicks are now deduplicated across launches. This results in cleaner attribution for recurring sends and better alignment with how contacts actually interact.
When
From June 28, 2025.
Customer Impact
Where You'll See These Changes
- Analytics dashboards
- Email Performance Report
What You Should Do
- No action is required — these updates are already live.
- You may notice small shifts in historical data.
- If you're comparing Analytics with older message reports, expect closer alignment — but not always exact matches.
Need help? Contact support
Thanks for your continued feedback — improvements like these come directly from the challenges you’ve helped us identify.