How can I track bounces, opens, or clicks in emails that I send from Amazon SES?

Short description

To track statistics in Amazon SES such as send volume, bounces, complaints, opens, and clicks, use Virtual Deliverability Manager. This feature allows you to monitor usage and interaction with your emails from a single dashboard. However, you must open the Virtual Deliverability Manager feature to actively view these statistics.

If you want to track activity outside of the console, then use Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) to receive notifications for the following events:

• A recipient opens your email.
• A recipient clicks a link in your email.
• Your email results in a bounce.

Resolution

Use Virtual Deliverability Manager to monitor email activity

Virtual Deliverability Manager tracks the status and user engagement for the emails that you send from Amazon SES. To set up and use this feature, see Getting started with Virtual Deliverability Manager.

This allows you to view your email metrics when you open the Virtual Deliverability Manager dashboard. However, you don't receive updates or notifications outside of the dashboard. If you want to receive a notification for certain email events, use the following resolution to configure Amazon SNS notifications. Then, use Virtual Deliverability Manager to view more detailed metrics on your notified events.

Use Amazon SNS to receive notifications for email activity

To configure Amazon SNS to notify you of email opens, link clicks, and bounces, complete the following steps.

Before you begin, make sure that you verified your domain with Amazon SES.

Note: If you copied multiple recipients in an email, then the following configuration doesn't show which recipient opened the email.

Create an SNS topic

To create an Amazon SNS topic, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon SNS console.
2. Choose Topics.
3. On the Topics page, choose Create topic.
4. In the Details section of the Create topic page, complete the following steps:
   For Type, choose Standard.
   For Topic name, enter a name.
   (Optional) For Display name, enter a topic display name.
5. Choose Create topic.
6. From the Topic details of the topic, choose Create subscription.
7. For Protocol, choose Email-JSON.
8. For Endpoint, enter the email address where you want to receive notifications.
9. Choose Create subscription.
10. From the email address, open the "AWS Notification - Subscription Confirmation" email from Amazon SNS.
11. Open the SubscribeURL URL to confirm your subscription.

Configure Amazon SES to send information about email clicks, opens, and bounces to the SNS topic

To configure Amazon SES to send information to the SNS topic, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon SES console, and then navigate to the appropriate AWS Region.
2. In the navigation pane, under Configuration, choose Configuration Sets.
3. Choose Create Set.
4. For Configuration Set Name, enter a name.
5. Choose Create Set.
6. Choose the Event Destinations tab, and then choose Add Destination.
7. For Event types, choose Hard Bounces, Opens and Clicks, and then choose Next.
8. For Destination type, choose Amazon SNS.
9. For Name, enter a name for the SNS destination.
10. For SNS Topic, choose the Amazon SNS topic, and then choose Next.
11. Choose Add Destination.

Send a test email to verify the notifications for email opens, clicks, and bounces

Amazon SES has a mailbox simulator that you can use to test email opens, clicks, and bounces.

To use the mailbox simulator to test, complete the following steps:

1. Open the Amazon SES console.

2. In the navigation pane, under Configuration, choose Verified Identities.

3. Select one of your verified domains.

4. Choose Send Test Email.

5. For Message details, choose the email format Raw.

6. For From-address, enter an email address with your verified domain.

7. For Scenario, choose Custom to verify opens and clicks or Bounce to verify bounces.

8. Enter an email address to use as a test recipient.
   Note: For Custom, if you're in the Amazon SES sandbox, then you must use a verified email address in the Custom recipient field.

   For Message, enter text that's similar to the following examples:

   Custom scenario

   X-SES-CONFIGURATION-SET: myConfigset
   From: test-verified-domain@example.com
   To: test-recipient@example.com
   Subject: Test email 
   Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
       boundary="----=_boundary"
   
   ------=_boundary
   Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
   Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
   
   This is a test email.
   
   <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/">Amazon Web Services</a>
   
   ------=_boundary--

   Bounce scenario

   X-SES-CONFIGURATION-SET: myConfigset
   From: test-verified-domain@example.com
   To: bounce@simulator.amazonses.com
   Subject: Test email
   Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
       boundary="----=_boundary"
   
   ------=_boundary
   Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
   Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
   
   This is a test email.
   
   <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/">Amazon Web Services</a>
   
   ------=_boundary--

   Note: Replace myConfigset with the name of your configuration set.

9. Choose Send Test Email.

10. From your test recipient email address, open the test email and click the link.

Specify the configuration set in the headers of your email

To apply your configuration set to your email, pass the configuration set in your email headers.

Check your SNS notifications and VDM metrics

To check your SNS notifications and Virtual Deliverability Manager metrics, complete the following steps:

1. From the inbox of the email address that you used for your Amazon SNS topic subscription, confirm that you received the notifications.
2. To check your email metrics, use the Virtual Deliverability Manager dashboard in the Amazon SES console.

Related information

Amazon SES email sending metrics FAQs

Virtual Deliverability Manager settings