When a guest says they never received their booking confirmation, or a client insists the invoice never arrived, you need facts. SMTP statistics give you a record of every message sent through Mailpro’s relay: when it left, whether it was accepted, and what happened next.
What you can see
- Delivery status for each message: accepted by the receiving server, deferred, or bounced.
- Bounce reasons: an address that doesn’t exist, a full mailbox, or a message rejected by filtering.
- Opens and clicks, where tracking is enabled, to see whether pre-arrival or payment emails are read.
- Location, through geo-tracking, which is useful when most recipients are overseas.
- Trends over time, in email analysis reports.
How businesses in the Federation use them
Resolving disputes
A villa manager on Nevis can confirm that the check-in instructions were delivered to the guest’s address two days before arrival, and at what time. A firm handling Citizenship by Investment paperwork can show that a document request reached the client’s inbox.
Catching problems early
If bounces suddenly rise from a booking engine, the cause is often a form that accepts mistyped addresses or a domain authentication issue. Catching it in the statistics means fixing it before dozens of guests miss their confirmations.
Handling storm-season surges
When a tropical storm approaches during the 1 June to 30 November hurricane season, hotels and tour operators may send many rebooking and cancellation emails in a short time. Statistics show whether they all went out and which recipients need a phone call instead.
Reading the numbers sensibly
Look at your own figures over time rather than chasing industry averages. A steady delivery rate with a sudden dip is a signal worth investigating; a gradually rising bounce rate points to list or form quality. Some mail apps pre-load images, so opens are a rough indicator rather than an exact count; clicks and replies are more reliable.
Common bounce reasons and what to do
- Unknown user: the address is mistyped or closed. Correct it at source or remove it.
- Mailbox full: usually a temporary problem, but repeated failures usually mean an abandoned address.
- Rejected as spam: check SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your domain, and look at the content of the message that failed.
A quick weekly routine
- Check the delivery rate for the past seven days and compare it with the previous week.
- Open the bounce list, correct obvious typos in your booking system and remove addresses that no longer exist.
- Look for any recipient domain with repeated deferrals, which can indicate an authentication issue with your domain.
- During peak season or when a storm is forecast, repeat the check daily.
Statistics and data protection
Delivery logs contain personal data, such as email addresses and timestamps. Keep them only as long as you need them, in line with the retention principle of the Federation’s Data Protection Act, 2018. Mailpro stores them in Switzerland, outside US jurisdiction.
The same reporting approach applies to your marketing emails through campaign statistics. To set up the relay itself, see SMTP server for St Kitts and Nevis, and for the basics, what is SMTP.