Read engagement stars and status
Learn what the stars show, how they are calculated and what Hot, Cooling, Cold and New mean.
The stars show how much of the email you sent to a contact they opened or clicked. Five stars is the highest rating, and half stars are possible. You see the stars in the Engagement tile on a contact profile and in the Engagement column of the All contacts list.
How the stars are calculated
- Each email the contact opened counts as 1. Each email they clicked counts as 1.5. An email is counted once.
- The total is divided by the number of emails delivered to the contact. That rate becomes the stars.
- MailGraf looks at all of the contact's emails and at their last 20 emails separately. The better of the two counts.
- Stars do not change because time has passed. They are recalculated only when a new email is delivered.
| Emails opened | Stars |
|---|---|
| All of them | 5 |
| Three quarters | 4.5 |
| Half | 3 |
| A quarter | 2 |
| One in ten | 1 |
| None | 0 |
How often you send does not affect the stars. A contact who opens every email gets 5 stars even if you send once a month.
The status label
The label beside the stars looks at the latest emails the contact received.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Hot | Opened or clicked at least one of the last 3 emails they received. |
| Cooling | Did not open the last 3 emails. They opened earlier ones. |
| Cold | Did not open any of the last 10 emails. |
| New | Has not received 3 emails yet. |
The stars describe the contact's overall interest. The label describes how they are doing now. A contact with 4 stars and Cooling was a good reader who has not opened your latest emails.
See the calculation on the profile
Open the Overview tab on the contact profile
The status card shows the stars, the status label and the contact's numbers.Click How are the stars calculated?
A panel opens from the right. It shows how many emails were delivered to the contact, how many they opened and how many they clicked.Read which rate counted
The stars come from whichever row carries the Counted label: All emails or Last 20 emails.
Automatic opens and scans
Apple Mail marks some emails as opened automatically. MailGraf counts these opens as half. Automatic clicks from security software are not counted at all.
Frequently asked questions
A contact stopped opening emails. Why did their stars not drop straight away?
The stars also look at all of the contact's emails. When someone who opened most of them goes quiet, the stars fall slowly. The label beside the stars shows how they are doing now: Cooling or Cold.
How does a contact with few stars climb back?
Their last 20 emails are looked at separately. If they start opening again, the stars rise even when their history is poor. A contact who opens all of their last 20 emails gets 5 stars.
Why does a contact I added recently have no stars?
Stars appear once the contact has received 3 emails. Until then the contact shows as New. Five stars need at least 5 emails.
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