## Introduction
Email deliverability is a critical metric for marketing teams, sales organizations, and operations specialists relying on email outreach. Poor deliverability directly harms open rates, leads generation, and brand reputation. Manually tracking email performance metrics such as delivery rates, bounce rates, open rates, and spam complaints can be tedious and error-prone.
This article demonstrates how to automate the tracking of email deliverability analytics using n8n, an open-source workflow automation tool. We’ll integrate email service providers (ESPs) such as SendGrid or Mailgun, parse delivery reports, and store metrics into Google Sheets or a database for analytics teams. The workflow will notify stakeholders on Slack or email about critical deliverability issues.
By automating these data flows, your Data & Analytics department gains real-time visibility on email operations and can respond faster to deliverability problems, improving overall campaign success.
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## What Problem Does This Automation Solve and Who Benefits?
**Problem:** Manual collection and aggregation of email deliverability data from ESPs, latency in detecting issues, and fragmented reporting make it difficult to maintain high delivery rates.
**Who Benefits:**
– Data & Analytics teams get real-time consolidated deliverability data.
– Marketing and Sales can act proactively on deliverability alerts.
– Operations reduces manual data drilling and error risk.
## Tools & Services Integrated
– **n8n:** Workflow automation platform to orchestrate the process.
– **Email Service Provider API:** For example, SendGrid or Mailgun API to retrieve email event data.
– **Google Sheets:** Storage of processed metrics for easy access and analysis.
– **Slack:** Channel notifications for alerts about delivery anomalies.
## How the Workflow Works: From Trigger to Output
1. **Trigger:** Scheduled n8n workflow (e.g., runs every hour) triggers the process.
2. **Fetch Email Events:** Connect to the ESP API to retrieve email delivery events in the last interval.
3. **Parse and Filter Events:** Extract relevant fields – delivered, bounced, opened, clicked, spam reports.
4. **Aggregate Metrics:** Calculate key metrics like delivery rate, bounce rate, open rate.
5. **Store Metrics:** Append aggregated data as a new row in Google Sheets.
6. **Notify on Threshold Breach:** If bounce or spam rates exceed thresholds, send a Slack alert.
## Step-by-Step Technical Tutorial
### Step 1: Setup n8n Environment
– Deploy n8n on your preferred environment (self-hosted server, Docker, or cloud).
– Ensure internet access and credentials ready for your ESP, Google, and Slack accounts.
### Step 2: Create a New Workflow in n8n
– Open n8n editor UI and create a new workflow.
– Set the Trigger node to **Cron**:
– Configure to run hourly or as per your analytics cadence.
### Step 3: Connect to the ESP API to Fetch Email Events
– Add an **HTTP Request** node or the ESP-specific node if available (e.g., SendGrid node).
– For SendGrid:
– Use the `GET /messages` or `GET /events` endpoint to retrieve recent email activity.
– Use OAuth or API Key for authentication.
– Parameters:
– Set query to fetch events from last hour using timestamps.
– Example HTTP Request config:
– Method: GET
– URL: `https://api.sendgrid.com/v3/messages?limit=100&query=last_event_time>={{$moment().subtract(1, ‘hours’).format(‘YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss’)}}`
– Headers: Authorization Bearer token
### Step 4: Extract and Format Event Data
– Add a **Set** or **Function** node to parse the JSON response.
– Extract event type (delivered, bounce, open, spamreport), timestamp, recipient, and message ID.
– Filter events for only the required types.
### Step 5: Aggregate Metrics
– Use a **Function** node to iterate over events and calculate:
– Total sent emails
– Total delivered
– Total bounces
– Total opens
– Total spam reports
– Calculate rates as percentages.
Example snippet for aggregation (inside Function node):
“`javascript
const events = items.map(item => item.json);
const totalSent = events.length;
const delivered = events.filter(e => e.event === ‘delivered’).length;
const bounces = events.filter(e => e.event === ‘bounce’).length;
const opens = events.filter(e => e.event === ‘open’).length;
const spamReports = events.filter(e => e.event === ‘spamreport’).length;
return [{
json: {
timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
totalSent,
delivered,
bounces,
opens,
spamReports,
deliveryRate: (delivered / totalSent) * 100,
bounceRate: (bounces / totalSent) * 100,
openRate: (opens / totalSent) * 100,
spamReportRate: (spamReports / totalSent) * 100
}
}];
“`
### Step 6: Log Metrics into Google Sheets
– Add **Google Sheets** node configured with:
– Operation: Append Row
– Sheet ID and Worksheet name
– Map columns for timestamp, totalSent, delivered, bounces, deliveryRate, bounceRate, openRate, spamReportRate
– Authenticate using OAuth credentials for Google API.
### Step 7: Alert on Thresholds via Slack
– Add a **If** node checking if bounceRate or spamReportRate exceeds acceptable thresholds (e.g., 5%).
– If true, connect to a **Slack** node configured to send a formatted alert message:
– E.g., “⚠️ High Bounce Rate detected: 7.2% at {{timestamp}}”
– Configure appropriate Slack channel and bot credentials.
### Step 8: Finalize and Activate Workflow
– Test full workflow end-to-end with sample data.
– Verify metrics are captured in Google Sheets.
– Confirm Slack alert triggers on test condition.
– Activate workflow for continuous operation.
## Common Errors & Tips for Robustness
– **API Rate Limits:** ESP APIs might throttle requests. Use appropriate pagination and respect rate limits.
– **Data Gaps:** Verify timestamps in query to avoid missing events between runs.
– **Authentication Failures:** Keep tokens refreshed, especially OAuth credentials.
– **Error Handling in n8n:** Use error workflow nodes to rerun or alert on failures.
– **Timezone Consistency:** Standardize timestamps in UTC to avoid reporting confusion.
– **Data Volume:** For large volumes, consider batching or incremental event fetches.
## How to Adapt or Scale This Workflow
– **Add More ESPs:** Extend the workflow with nodes to pull data from multiple providers.
– **Push to Data Warehouse:** Instead of Sheets, push data to BigQuery, Snowflake, or your analytics DB.
– **Granular Segmentation:** Add filters for campaigns, sender domains, or regions.
– **Dashboard Integration:** Connect aggregated metrics to BI tools (e.g., Metabase, Superset).
– **Real-Time Alerts:** Decrease cron intervals or build webhook-based triggers if ESP supports event webhooks.
## Summary
Automating email deliverability analytics with n8n frees your Data & Analytics team from manual data wrangling and enables proactive management of email campaigns. By integrating your ESP with Google Sheets and Slack, you create a feedback loop that surfaces critical issues immediately.
This workflow is highly customizable and scalable to fit your organization’s email infrastructure, ensuring ongoing improvements in email performance and ROI.
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**Bonus Tip:** Use ESP webhooks where possible to build event-driven workflows in n8n. This optimizes latency and reduces API call overhead, enabling near real-time analytics and alerts.