Email Studio Reports and Scheduling: Weekly Summaries, Automated

Client's VP of Marketing asks for "weekly performance summary in my inbox every Monday." They don't want to log into SFMC. They don't want to read CSV exports.

Email Studio Reports + Report Scheduling ships this in 30 minutes.

Here are the reports worth knowing and how to automate delivery.

Where to find Reports

Email Studio > Reports tab. Different from Tracking (per-send) - Reports run across sends, time windows, or Business Units.

The reports we use most

ReportUse whenAccount Send SummaryMonthly/weekly summary across all sends, for managementEmail Performance by DomainCheck delivery by ISP (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook) - during IP warming or deliverability investigationRecent Email Send SummaryOne-off report for a specific sendEmail Sends by UserAudit trail - who sent what

Each produces a structured output (CSV or PDF depending on delivery option).

Running a report

Pick the report, set:

• Date range
• Business Units (if Enterprise account)
• Filters (specific senders, specific audiences, etc.)
• Output format

Click Run. Report generates; you choose what to do with it.

Delivery options

After running, three choices:

1. Save as Snapshot - stored in SFMC for later viewing
2. Email the report - sent as CSV attachment to a list of email addresses
3. Save to SFTP folder - deposited to SFMC SFTP for downstream systems to pick up

For management summaries, Email is simplest. For automated warehouse loading, SFTP.

Scheduling automated reports

Report Scheduling wraps a report to run on a schedule. Configure:

• Report type
• Frequency (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Time of day
• Delivery method (email, SFTP, snapshot)
• Recipients (if email)

Once configured, the report runs automatically. Client VP gets their Monday summary without anyone doing anything.

Example setup:

Report: Account Send Summary

Most-requested management report. Shows:

• Total sends in the period
• Average open rate, click rate
• Total unsubscribes, complaints
• Sends by Business Unit (if multi-BU account)

For clients with 10+ sends per week, this is the only report they need. High-level enough for executives, detailed enough to spot anomalies.

Report: Email Performance by Domain

Engineering tool. Breaks down delivery rate, open rate, bounce rate by recipient ISP (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.).

When to check:

• During IP warming - are all ISPs accepting equally?
• When overall metrics look off - is one ISP causing the drag?
• After a big send - did any ISP start soft-bouncing aggressively?

Shows problems that aggregate numbers hide. Overall open rate 18%? Fine on the surface. Split by domain and find Gmail at 24% but Yahoo at 3% - Yahoo reputation issue to investigate.

Report: Recent Email Send Summary

Quick one-send summary with all the metrics. Use when a client asks "send me the performance on yesterday's send."

Faster than running a custom query. Use Email delivery - client gets the PDF/CSV attached.

Report: Email Sends by User

Audit trail. Lists sends by sender account.

When you need it:

• Client says "who sent that email this morning?"
• Investigating accidental production sends
• Compliance audit

Not used often, but valuable when it's needed. Bookmark the location.

Automating the management summary

The pattern we set up on most engagements:

Two scheduled reports. Exec team gets a high-level Monday view; ops team gets a detailed Friday view. Neither team needs to log in.

Limitations to plan around

• Reports run on a delay - "yesterday's data" typically has the final numbers, real-time might still be updating
• Complex custom visualizations aren't possible in Reports - use Datorama for that (covered later)
• Cross-BU reports depend on account structure and permissions

For dashboards with live data and custom charts, Datorama / Intelligence Reports is the upgrade. For basic scheduled summaries, Reports is enough.

Common mistakes

Not setting up scheduling at kickoff

Manual weekly report generation consumes marketing ops time. If the client wants it weekly, schedule it. 30 minutes once, saved hours monthly.

Scheduling too many reports

Five different scheduled reports to the same stakeholder is spam. Consolidate. One weekly summary beats five narrower reports.

Misleading time windows

Monday morning report showing "past 7 days" overlaps the previous Monday's data. Use "past week completed" (Mon-Sun) instead, more natural to read.

Takeaway

Email Studio Reports + Report Scheduling covers the 80% use case of "automated summary to a stakeholder." Account Send Summary for executives, Email Performance by Domain for deliverability engineers. Set up at kickoff, hand the client a link to their scheduled reports, and marketing ops gets back hours they were spending on manual exports.

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Setting up client reporting automation on SFMC? Our Salesforce team builds scheduled report infrastructure tailored to client stakeholder needs on production engagements. Get in touch ->

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