Create a Custom Report

Create and build a custom report with the metrics that matter most to you to see how your contacts interact with your email campaigns. Use custom reports to help you improve your email performance and share reports with your stakeholders.

In this article, you’ll learn how to build, export, edit, review the details and history, rerun, and delete a custom report.

The Apple MPP (Mail Privacy Protection) policy for email was released September 21, 2021 with the iOS 15 operating system. With this release, Apple downloads incoming emails on its own server. This makes it appear as if a recipient opened the email, which inflates the sender’s open-related metrics. You have the option to exclude emails opened by Apple MPP from your open-related metrics for emails sent on or after June 22, 2024.

Before you start

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• This feature is included with the Standard plan or higher.
• To create a custom report you’ll need to have at least 1 audience with a sent email. To learn more about audience creation, check out Getting Started with Your Audience.
• Open and click tracking must be turned on in an email for those statistics to populate in a report.
• We recommend that you exclude Apple MPP from your reports for more accurate opens and open-related metrics. To learn more about Apple MPP and how it impacts your opens and open-related metrics, check out About Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP).
• To view e-commerce data, you must first connect your store to Mailchimp with an e-commerce integration or the API.
• The report date range is based on your account’s local time zone.

Create a custom report

Create a custom report by naming your report and choosing an audience and date range. You’ll build your report by choosing metrics for email engagement, email delivery, and e-commerce.

Set up your report

To name your report and select an audience and date range, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports. You may need to click the Custom reports tab.
2. Click Create custom report.
3. In the Report name field, enter a name for your report. Click Add description to add optional text to describe the report.
4. Click the Audience drop-down to choose an audience for the report. You may choose more than one.
5. Click the Date range drop-down to open the time frame options.
6. Click Date range from the second drop-down to choose a time frame, or use Start date and End date to choose a custom date range.
   
7. Click Apply.

Build your report

In the Build your report section, you’ll choose 1 or more metrics for email engagement, email delivery, or e-commerce. The metrics you select will form the columns of your CSV file. The selection you choose in the Group by field will form the rows of your CSV file. Filter the report by email type or name.

To learn more about the metrics you can include in your custom report, read our All the Custom Report Metrics article.

To build your custom report, follow these steps.

1. Use the Metrics drop-down to choose the columns for your CSV file. Selected metrics will be displayed above the Metrics field. You may choose more than one.
   
   Click 'X' to delete a metric.
2. If you selected open-related metrics, check the box next to Exclude Apple MPP for more accurate open data to remove the metrics for emails opened by Apple MPP. We’ll display an Excluded or Included Apple MPP status in sections with open-related metrics.
3. Click the Group by drop-down to choose the rows for your CSV file.
4. Click the optional Add filter drop-down to filter by Email type or Email name.

5. Click the second optional drop-down to apply additional filters. You may choose more than one.

   Click the trash icon to delete the filter options.

6. The layout preview will show sample data and for Apple MPP, depending on your choice to include or exclude it.
7. Click Run report.

Nice work! Next, you'll view the graph and export your report once it's in Completed status to see how your email performed. You’ll also have the option to edit, review details and history, rerun, or delete the report.

View and customize the graph

View the graph to quickly see how your marketing emails are performing over time. Share images of your graphs in presentations with stakeholders and others. Choose a metric and hover over each bar in your graph to see the the details.

To view and customize the graph for your custom report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the View graph icon for the report you want to work with.
   
3. Click the Metric drop-down to choose a metric for your graph. For an open-related metric, check the box next to Exclude Apple MPP for more accurate data to exclude emails opened by Apple MPP.
   

4. Click the Chart type drop-down to choose Vertical bars or Horizontal bars. For the Opened metric, your options may also include Stacked bars and Pie chart.

   Keep these guidelines in mind if you include Apple MPP for the Opened metric.

   • Stacked, vertical, and horizontal bars show the total number of opens with a separate bar for Apple MPP excluded. Here’s an example of a stacked bar report that includes Apple MPP.
   • Pie charts will always display data for including and excluding Apple MPP, even if you choose to exclude it.
5. Click the Metric drop-down to choose a different metric for the y-axis. The x-axis displays all the Group by metrics you selected for the report.

Export a custom report

The report table shows the report name, status, date created, and the last run date. Reports in Completed status can be exported and viewed. In progress reports may take several minutes to complete, depending on the parameters you’ve selected.

To export a custom report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the export icon for the report you want to work with to download a CSV file.
   

Edit a custom report

To edit a custom report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the three vertical dots for the report you want to work with and choose Edit.
   
3. Change the report fields as needed, then click Save and run report.

View report details and history

To view the details and history of a custom report, follow these steps.

View report details

To view details such as the created and run dates, audience, date range, report type, metrics, groupings, and filters used for the report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the three vertical dots for the report you want to work with and choose View details & history.
   
   To edit the report details, click Edit report to open the report builder. Click Save and run report when you’re finished.

View report history

To view the run dates and times for the report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the three vertical dots for the report you want to work with and choose View details & history.
   
3. Click the History tab to see when the report was run.
   

Rerun a custom report

To rerun the report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the three vertical dots for the report you want to work with and choose Rerun.
   
3. The export icon displays when the report is in Complete status.

Delete a custom report

To delete a custom report, follow these steps.

1. Click Analytics, then click Custom reports.
2. Click the three vertical dots for the report you want to work with and choose Delete.
   
3. In the pop-up modal, click Delete to confirm.