Tracking Email Invitations

Opened & Clicked Through Rates
Invitation Tracking Setting
Invitations Chart
Responses Chart
Common Questions

If you send your survey via email invitation, you can track how many people opened your invitation, clicked through to the survey, responded to your survey, or opted out of your survey in the Overview tab of the collector.

TIP! Follow these steps to set up your Email Invitation Collector before sending your survey so you can track respondents.

Opened & Clicked Through Rates

By tracking the opened and clicked through rates of your email invitations, you can identify where respondents need help and send more effective follow-up emails.

Opened Rate
Opened Rate = # Opened / # Total Invitations
Your Opened rate is the percentage of recipients who opened the email invitation in their email client.
The opened rate helps you measure which subject lines or email delivery times entice people to open the email invitation. To improve your opened rate:
- Send reminder messages.
- Write compelling subject lines.
- Schedule invitations when people are more likely to take surveys.
Opened includes both recipients who only opened the invitation AND recipients who opened the invitation and clicked through to the survey. To find the number of people who opened the email invitation but did not click through, simply subtract the number of clicked through from the number of Opened.
Clicked Through Rate
Clicked Through Rate = # Clicked Through / # Total Invitations
Your clicked through rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked through to the survey by clicking the Begin Survey button (or clicked the survey link).
The clicked through rate helps you measure which email content inspires action—in this case, getting your recipients to click the Begin Survey button. To improve your clicked through rate:
- Make sure your content is easy to understand and concise.
- Provide a compelling reason to take the survey—explain what the survey's about, how long it will take, and how you'll act on the results.
Click-to-Open Rate

Invitation Tracking Setting

Invitation Tracking

Paid feature

Track how many people opened your invitation and clicked through to your survey in the Overview tab of the collector. You need to keep Invitation Tracking turned on—it's turned on in the collector options by default.

Invitation Tracking has two settings:

On, show how many people opened your email invitation and clicked through to your survey
Off, don’t show how many people opened your email invitation and clicked through to your survey

You can't edit this setting once you schedule or send your first invitation in the collector. If you turned off Invitation Tracking, you're not able to turn it back on. Opened and clicked through data will still be collected in the backend, but you won't be able to see it in your collector. See Information about Page Tags in our Privacy Notice for more info.

Invitations Chart

Opened & Clicked-Through Rates

Paid feature

The Invitations chart tracks how recipients interact with your email invitations. This chart includes useful data like how many recipients opened the email invitation and how many recipients clicked through to your survey.

Chart showing the amount of invitations opened, unopened and bounced. There is a clicked through rate and number of those who opted out.

Label	Description
Total Invitations	The total number of email invitations sent to individual email addresses in the collector. This is also the total number of recipients added to the collector.
Opened	The minimum number of recipients who opened the email invitation in their email client—more people may have opened the email invitation because: Open data can't be tracked if recipients don't download images in their email client. Opened data can't be tracked for messages you send as plain text. Recipients you send plain text messages to are counted as Unopened unless they click through. If they click through, they are counted as both Opened and Clicked through.
Unopened	The maximum number of recipients who haven't opened the email invitation. It's possible more recipients opened it but weren't counted (see info on Opened in the row above).
Bounced	The number of recipients whose email invitation bounced and couldn't be delivered.
Clicked Through	The number of recipients who clicked through to the survey by clicking the Begin Survey button (or clicked the survey link).
Opted Out	Recipients who opted out from receiving surveys sent through your SurveyMonkey account.

Responses Chart

The Responses chart tracks how recipients interact with your survey. This chart includes useful data like how many people responded to the survey, how many people completed the survey, and how many people only partially completed the survey.

Chart showing the amount of responses that were completed and those that were partially completed.

Label	Description
Total Responses	The total number of recipients who clicked through AND responded to the survey. Includes both Complete or Partial responses. Not all recipients who clicked through will respond to the survey.
Complete	Recipients who finished your survey—clicked the Done button at the end of the survey. Includes Complete, Disqualified, and Over Quota responses.
Partial	Recipients who started but didn't complete the survey—they responded to at least one survey question and clicked Next on at least one survey page, but didn't click Done on the last page of the survey.
Not Responded	Recipients who haven't submitted a survey response. To calculate the number of Not Responded, subtract the number of Total Responses from the number of Total Invitations. This info is also in the Recipients tab.

TIP! You can calculate your survey response rate by dividing the number of Total Invitations by the number of Total Responses. In general, you can expect a low response rate if your survey is long, your survey language is complicated, or you send your survey to the wrong audience. Read our tips to ensure you're doing all you can to get the best response rate possible.

Common Questions

How do I view individual recipients or responses?
From the Recipients tab of your Email Invitation Collector, you can see exactly which recipients have or haven't taken your survey. Use the drop-down menus to filter by:
- All Recipients
- All Responded
- Complete Responses
- Partial Responses
- Not Responded
- Opted Out
- Bounced
It's not possible to filter by Opened, Clicked Through, or Unopened.

You can also view individual responses from the Analyze Results section of your survey. Under the Individual Responses tab, you'll see the email address and response status tied to each individual response.

What if a recipient opts out?

Recipients can opt out from your email invitations at any time.

The number of Opted Out recipients appears below the Invitations chart, separate from the total number of invitations you sent. This is because:

Recipients who opt out may have opened the email invitation or clicked through before opting out.
Recipients who opt out may have responded to your survey before opting out.
Recipients may have previously opted out from your email invitations.

Example	Status
A recipient opens the email invitation and immediately clicks the opts out link.	• Opted Out • Opened • Not Responded
A recipient opens the email invitation, clicks the Begin Survey button, and completes the survey. Then the recipient clicks the opt out link.	• Opted Out • Opened • Clicked Through • Complete
A recipient clicks the opt out link from a previous message you sent in a different collector. Then you add them to a new message and send the message.	• Opted Out • Unopened* • Not Responded

* We don't send messages to email addresses that have previously opted out, but we still include them in your Total Invitations as Unopened and in the Recipients tab as Not Responded.

What if I send a single recipient multiple messages?

The Invitations and Responses charts only count each recipient once. No matter how many messages you send to an individual recipient through the collector, they're only counted once in the charts.

Example	Status
You send a recipient an Invitation message, but they don't open it. Then you send them a Reminder message and they do open it.	• Opened
You send a recipient an Invitation message, but they don't open it. Then you send them a Reminder message and they open it and click the Begin Survey button.	• Opened • Clicked Through
You send a recipient an Invitation message, but they don't open it. Then you send them another Invitation message and they do open it.	• Opened

Why don't I see Opened or Clicked Through in my chart?
Opened, unopened, and click-through rates are available on Advantage plans or higher—get more info on your plan. Additionally, if you turned Invitation Tracking off, you can't turn it back on once you schedule or send a message in the collector. Opened, Clicked through, and Unopened may not be available in some of your older Email Invitation Collectors.
This tracking feature was launched in June 2015. After the feature was added to your SurveyMonkey account, any new Email Invitation Collector you created from can include this tracking data. However, we can't retroactively include this data to older Email Invitation Collectors since tracking wasn't available when those messages were sent.
Can I track invitations but still keep their responses anonymous?

Language Codes

Sending Multilingual Surveys by Email Invitation

Matrix Answers Disappear or Deselect Automatically

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