You log into your Workbench dashboard, eager to check on your latest campaign — and then it hits you.
Your report is showing more opens than sends.
Wait… how is that even possible? Did your email list magically grow overnight?
Don’t worry — this is actually a normal occurrence, and there’s a simple way to make sense of the numbers.
The Mystery Explained
Here’s what’s happening:
Every time a recipient reopens an email — whether that’s the first time, second, or tenth — it counts as another open.
That means if you send 100 emails and 30 people open them twice, your dashboard could show 130 opens, even though you only sent 100 emails.
This isn’t an error — it’s just total opens, not unique opens.
Your Fix in Three Steps
If you want a more accurate picture, follow this quick playbook:
1. Switch to Unique Opens
In Workbench, change the metric from Total Opens to Unique Opens. This counts each person only once, no matter how many times they opened the email.
2. Narrow the Date Range
Use the date filter to isolate the exact campaign period. This eliminates noise from older or overlapping campaigns.
3. Export a Contact-Level Report
For the deepest insight, export the data to CSV. This gives you a list of which contacts opened the email — one line per person.
When to Escalate
If your numbers still look strange even after switching to Unique Opens, it might be worth escalating to your data or support team. There could be a sync issue or reporting glitch that needs investigation.