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Track Email Opens

With email open tracking, you’ll get insights on which recipients have opened your email along with when and how many times the email was opened.

How to Enable Email Open Tracking

Follow the step-by-step beginner tutorial to create an email campaign, after step 4.3, scroll to the Tracking section and enable Track Email Opens checkbox.

screenshot highlighting the checkbox to enable email open tracking feature

How to View Email Open Tracking Report

You can view email open tracking report in two ways:

  1. Open the Google Sheet where your contact list is stored. The Campaign Status column shows the status of each row.
  2. Launch Mailway Mail Merge add-on, go to My Campaigns > click on the name of the campaign that you want to see tracking report.

Limitations of Email Open Tracking

Email open tracking can be a helpful tool to gauge recipient engagement, but it’s important to understand its limitations:

  • Invisible Image Tracking: We embed a tiny, one-pixel transparent image in your emails. When recipients open the email and allow images to download, the image sends a signal back to our server, registering an “open.”

  • Cached Images: Some email providers, like Gmail, can pre-download the images based on recipient’s Gmail settings. This means an open might be registered even if the recipient hasn’t actually opened your specific email.

  • Multiple Opens and Caching: Our addon can track multiple times a recipient opens your email by recording each time the image is downloaded from our server. However, if the recipient server (e.g. Gmail) caches the images, it would only download the image once, even if the recipient opens the email multiple times. In this case, only one “open” would be registered for the recipient.

  • Image Blocking: If recipients disable image downloads in their email client, we won’t be able to track opens even if they read your email.

In short, email open tracking provides a general idea of engagement, but it’s not an exact measurement.

Recommendations for Improved Tracking:

While email open tracking offers insights, consider these strategies for a more complete picture:

  • Include Engaging Images: If you’re using open tracking, it’s best to include at least one relevant image in your email. This increases the chance that recipients will download images, allowing the tracking pixel to function.

  • Prioritize Click Tracking: Click tracking is a much more reliable way to measure recipient engagement. It monitors when recipients click on links within your email. This data provides a clearer understanding of which parts of your message resonate most with your audience.

  • Combine Tracking Methods: For the best results, use both open and click tracking together. This allows you to see how many recipients opened your email and which elements within the email captured their attention.