Verified opens, bounces, and the recipients list

The campaign Analytics tab shows Total Sent, Open Rate, Click Rate, Reply Rate, Bounce Rate, Unsubscribed, and Stopped. Click any of those cards to see exactly WHO is behind the number: the recipients list shows each person, when they engaged, how many times they opened, which link they clicked, their reply intent, bounce type, or unsubscribe reason, plus which teammate's mailbox sent to them, and clicking a person opens their contact record.

Open and click rates show a second "manual" figure: opens and clicks by real recipients acting themselves. Email providers and security tools generate automated activity (corporate scanners pre-click every link, some services pre-load images), so the raw number can overstate real interest. Every open and click is classified: manual actions count toward the manual figure; automated hits from security scanners and instant prefetches are excluded; opens through Apple's Mail privacy relay are shown separately as "privacy proxy" because Apple pre-loads emails for every Apple Mail user whether or not they actually opened (no email tool can confirm those). A click or a reply from a real person is the strongest signal of genuine interest.

Bounces are detected on both sending paths: platform sends report bounces directly, and connected mailboxes (Gmail, Microsoft, SMTP) have their bounce-back "mail delivery failed" messages read from the inbox by the reply sync. A hard bounce (address does not exist) automatically marks the contact's email invalid, adds them to the unsubscribe list, and stops their sequence so dead addresses never receive follow-ups; a soft bounce (mailbox full, temporary issue) is recorded and sending continues, up to a point: three soft bounces in a row on the same address, with no successful delivery in between, suppress it the same way a hard bounce does. See "Soft bounces and the three-strike rule". Below that limit the contact is still yours to judge: open Contacts, then Filters, then Bounced, and pick "Needs a decision" to list every contact that bounced without being suppressed, or pick a specific bounce type. From there you can retry them, verify the address, or suppress them yourself. Out-of-office auto-replies do not count as replies (or opens) and do not stop the sequence, but they DO confirm delivery: the person is just away, so follow-ups continue as scheduled and the send is marked delivered. A reply that asks to unsubscribe is honoured automatically: the contact is added to the opt-out list, not just labelled.

One connection note: a Gmail mailbox connected via Google sign-in is send-only (Google restricts inbox reading), so replies and bounces are not synced back for it. Connect Gmail with an app password instead to get full reply + bounce sync.