Calculating the Clicked Rate in a Message Report

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The Clicked rate in a Sent Message Report is the percentage of unique recipients who clicked at least one link in the email. Knowing how the calculation works matters when your numbers are compared against an industry benchmark or another platform that may do the math differently.

Why this matters: Two platforms can report a different Clicked rate for the same send because they divide by different totals. If you're comparing Act-On's numbers to an industry average, or reconciling with another system, knowing which denominator Act-On uses stops you from drawing the wrong conclusion.
Quick Reference (Advanced Users) - Click to Expand
  • Clicked rate = Unique clickers / Unique Sent.
  • Unique Sent is total unique recipients minus Not Sent and Suppressed.
  • Alternative calculation (clicks / opens) is available via the Rollup Report.
  • Percentages for Opened, Bounced, Did Not Open, and Clicked are all unique-based in the Sent Message Report.
Try it like this: If 1,000 unique recipients were sent an email and 80 of them clicked any link, the Clicked rate shown in the Sent Message Report is 8% (80 / 1,000). Those 80 could have generated 200 total clicks between them; it still counts as 80 unique clickers.

How Act-On calculates Clicked rate

In the Sent Message Report, the percentages for Opened, Bounced, Did Not Open, and Clicked are all shown as unique counts measured against Unique Sent. The Clicked rate is specifically:

Clicked rate = unique people who clicked at least one link / unique people the message was sent to

"Unique Sent" is the total unique recipients minus anyone in the Not Sent or Suppressed buckets. Clicking the same email twice doesn't change the Clicked rate; that person is still one unique clicker.

The two industry methods

There are two common ways to calculate a Clicked rate:

  • Clicks divided by opens. This tells you how many people who read the message then clicked something.
  • Clicks divided by unique messages sent. This tells you how many of your intended audience engaged.

Act-On uses the second method in the Sent Message Report because it reflects the full audience you targeted. If you prefer the first method, you can calculate it yourself, or pull the Rollup Report from the Sent Messages listing and run the math against total opens.

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