Email Tracking

What exactly is email tracking?

Email tracking is a method for monitoring the email delivery to intended receiver.That means you will get a notification whether the recipient has opened the email, clicked on any of your link, which device he or she uses to open you the email. It can even provide you with the IP address which means you can get to know about the geographical location of email recipient

How email tracking tools works?

Most of these tools work on the same principle.One of these tools available is Banana tag. It embeds a small, 1 pixel by 1-pixel transparent image in each email, hosted on their servers. When recipient opens the email, Bananatag knows that unique image has been accessed, and can then tell the sender their email has been opened. Similarly, it turns links into short links that head back to its server, so they know when they're accessed (but keeping the original text of the link intact).

Which tools should I use for email tracking

There are number of tools available. Below are some of the free email tracking tools with their features.

Yesware is very minimal with their features. You get solid email tracking, and that's it. I'd like to see better CRM features and website tracking as well, but the cost is much better than ToutApp, and I like their Gmail plugin.

ToutApp has a lot of features, but my favorite things, like website tracking, only come at the higher price tiers, which are very expensive!

RocketBolt is in between Yesware & ToutApp regarding features. The email tracking is about the same as Yesware, but has much better lead tracking features. Price is excellent too.

Boomerang is not so much lead or email tracking, but more so email management. I use this for follow-up reminders and email scheduling. Using this combined with either RocketBolt or Yesware is a great option.

Sending a tracked email is simple. It takes three steps.

How to track an email:

Track an email in 3 simple steps:

1. Install an email tracking app.

There's a few different email tracking systems out there. With free email tracking, we get live notifications when someone opens or clicks our emails. We also get real-time updates on when, how many times, where, and from what device a contact opened our email.

Oh, and it's free.

2. Compose an email.

Start typing away.

But, sometimes that’s easier said than done. Which is why we created a contact profile feature, like the example below, within our email tracking tool so you can see information about who you’re emailing.

We can view information like where they work, where they live, mutual contacts, email history, social profiles, and more. This gives us valuable context that can help kick start our messages and make them more meaningful

Does email tracking ruin our privacy?

Email tracking is used by individuals, email marketers, spammers and phishers, to verify that emails are actually read by recipients, that email addresses are valid, and that the content of emails has made it past spam filters. It can sometimes reveal if emails get forwarded (but not usually to whom). When used maliciously, it can be used to collect confidential information about businesses and individuals and to create more effective phishing schemes.

The tracking mechanisms employed are typically first-party cookies and web bugs.

If you are using email tracking or email marketing software, your company's privacy policy should state that you may use tracking devices such as cookies and web beacons.

How to Avoid Being Tracked

There are different ways to avoid tracking depending on the email service provider that you are using.

For Gmail, one way is to turn off automatic image loading. For doing this click the gear icon at the top right of Gmail and then select Settings.In the Images section on the General tab, choose "Ask before displaying external images.

load image of in gmail

But there is no full proof technique to avoid being tracked. All you can do is turn off the image. But some email contains images which you need t access.

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