The Deliverability Dashboard provides a view of your email deliverability health and performance metrics over time across all your sending domains. Reviewing these metrics regularly helps ensure your emails reach your subscribers' inboxes. For background on what email deliverability is and the factors that drive it, see Email deliverability overview.
What is it?
The Deliverability Dashboard is a centralized reporting page in Attentive that provides an overview of your email deliverability and sending health. Instead of reviewing individual metrics across separate campaigns and journeys, this dashboard aggregates your data to showcase overall trends and help you monitor your sender reputation.
The dashboard displays:
1. Deliverability Score
A consolidated numerical score calculated from your unique open, unique click, unsubscribe, hard bounce, soft bounce, and spam complaint rates over a rolling 30-day window. Each score falls into one of four ranges:
| Range | Rating |
| 85–100 | Excellent |
| 70–84 | Good |
| 55–69 | Fair |
| 0–54 | Risky |
A higher score indicates better deliverability and a stronger sender reputation. Scores in the Fair or Risky range mean one or more underlying metrics need attention—use the health score factors breakdown to figure out which. For more context on what drives a sender's overall reputation with mailbox providers, see FAQs: Email deliverability.
2. Health Score Factors
A detailed view of the specific metrics driving your overall score, compared against standard industry benchmarks. Each metric is rated on the same Excellent / Good / Fair / Risky scale, so you can quickly spot which areas are driving your score up or down. For the rate ranges we use to determine each rating, see Email deliverability overview.
The metrics tracked are:
- Delivered rate — The percentage of emails that were accepted by the mailbox provider. A low delivered rate often points to authentication issues or a poor sender reputation.
- Unique open rate — The percentage of unique recipients who opened your email. Strong open rates signal that subscribers find your content relevant.
- Unique click rate — The percentage of unique recipients who clicked a link in your email. Click rate is one of the most reliable engagement signals mailbox providers use to assess sender reputation.
- Unsubscribe rate — The percentage of recipients who opted out after receiving an email. High unsubscribe rates can indicate over-sending or a mismatch between your content and what subscribers expected when they signed up.
- Hard bounce rate — The percentage of emails that failed to deliver permanently (for example, the address doesn't exist). High hard bounce rates damage sender reputation and signal that your list needs cleaning.
- Soft bounce rate — The percentage of emails that failed to deliver due to a temporary issue (for example, a full inbox). Occasional soft bounces are normal, but persistent high rates can indicate deeper problems.
- Marked as spam rate — The percentage of recipients who reported your email as spam. This is one of the most heavily weighted reputation signals at most mailbox providers—even small increases can have outsized impact.
For deeper definitions of any of these terms, see the Email deliverability glossary.
3. Metric Performance Over Time
A line chart visualizing how individual health metrics trend over a designated date range. You can view all or individual metrics.
4. Bounce Analysis
A breakdown separating hard and soft bounces, highlighting the explicit reasons they occurred and their overall frequency percentage.
Hard Bounces
A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure. The mailbox provider has told us that the email can't be delivered and we shouldn't try again. The most common causes are:
- Mailbox is disabled — The recipient's mailbox has been deactivated or closed.
- Email account does not exist — The address is invalid or was mistyped at signup.
- Storage space limit — The mailbox provider has flagged the account as permanently over its storage limit.
- Mailbox unavailable — The mailbox provider has blocked delivery to this address.
- Recipient rejected — The mailbox provider rejected the message based on the recipient address.
- Mailbox not found — The address could not be located at the provider.
- User unknown — The provider has no record of the recipient.
- Other — Less common bounce reasons grouped together.
For ways to address list quality issues, see Best practices: Email deliverability.
Soft Bounces
A soft bounce is a temporary delivery failure. The mailbox provider couldn't deliver the message right now, but the address itself is still considered valid. Common causes include:
- Storage space limit — The recipient's mailbox is temporarily over its storage limit.
- Mailbox full — Same idea, but flagged by a different class of mailbox provider.
- Quota exceeded — The provider has rate-limited delivery to this account.
- Rejected — The provider temporarily refused the message.
- Spam — The provider flagged the content as suspicious and held delivery.
- Hop count exceeded — The message bounced between servers too many times before reaching the inbox.
- Permanent failure — A temporary state the provider expects to clear, but that has been failing repeatedly.
- Other — Less common reasons grouped together.
Persistent high soft bounce rates—especially driven by "Spam" or repeated "Rejected" responses—can signal a developing reputation issue that's worth investigating before it turns into a harder problem. See Troubleshoot email deliverability issues for diagnostic steps.
How do I use it?
- Log in to your Attentive account.
- Navigate to the main menu and click the Dashboards tab.
- Select Deliverability from the drop-down options.
- (Optional) To change the lookback period used to calculate your metrics, adjust the date range using the message send dates filter in the top left corner of the dashboard.
- Review the individual health factors and execute the recommended actions listed under the suggestions for improvement section to resolve performance issues.
Why should I use it?
You should monitor the Deliverability Dashboard periodically—ideally a few times a month—to ensure your sender reputation remains healthy and free of deliverability blockers. Because major inbox providers filter mail using automated systems, poor engagement or high bounce rates can cause your messages to land in spam folders or be blocked entirely.
This dashboard removes the guesswork by clearly indicating which specific metrics are "At Risk" or underperforming. It surfaces proactive recommendations and actionable steps directly in the platform, allowing you to quickly diagnose delivery failures, optimize your targeting strategy, and protect your sender reputation.