Deliverability Trend

What this report shows

Weekly aggregated email open and bounce rates broken out by mailbox provider (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.). It's the earliest signal that one of those providers has tightened spam-filter thresholds against PolitiFast — a single-provider open-rate cliff is the canary for an emerging deliverability problem.

How to read it

• Each row in the chart is one mailbox provider; each point is one ISO-week's rate.
• Open rate trend — a sustained drop at one provider while others stay flat = that provider tightened on us.
• Bounce rate trend — a steady increase at one provider = that provider is starting to soft-bounce emails it used to accept.
• Look at both together — if opens drop and bounces stay flat, the provider is accepting mail but dumping it in spam; if bounces also climb, it's starting to reject outright.

Common questions

• Why are providers grouped? Recipients are bucketed by their email domain. Gmail = `gmail.com` + Google Workspace domains; Outlook = `outlook.com` + `hotmail.com` + `live.com`; everything unrecognized goes to "Other".
• Why does a healthy provider suddenly drop? The most common cause is a list-quality issue (spammy content, or imported list with old addresses). Sometimes it's reputation — a single content campaign with high complaint rate can punish you for weeks.
• Why is "Other" the biggest bucket? Either you're sending to a lot of business domains, or the domain grouper hasn't been taught about a major provider yet.

What to do if numbers look wrong

1. If one provider drops sharply, check the broadcast-performance report — was there a single send that triggered it?
2. Check the bounce log for the affected provider — the bounce reason text usually says exactly why.
3. If "Other" is huge, look at the underlying domains — there may be one big business domain that deserves its own bucket.