How Does Email Tracking Work On Gmail and Outlook?

How does email tracking work? If you have been wondering about the same, you have come to the right place.

Email tracking has become an increasingly popular tool for businesses looking to track their campaigns and measure the effectiveness of their outreach. But what exactly is email tracking, and how does it work?

In this blog post, we'll cover the basics of email tracking for both Outlook and Gmail users, so you can make sure your messages are seen (and read!).

Let's get started!

How Does Email Tracking Work in General?

Email tracking is a technology that enables email senders to track when their messages have been opened and read by recipients.

By understanding when a message has been opened or viewed, senders can gain insight into how their contacts are engaging with their emails.

One of the most common methods of email tracking is to use an invisible image pixel or a ‘web beacon.’ This is a tiny graphic with 1×1 pixel dimension that is embedded in an HTML code within the email.

When the email is opened, the tracking pixels send a signal back to the server which can be used to track how many people have viewed the page or email.

Given the tiny size of the pixel, it remains invisible to the email recipients. They can be designed to be fully or partly transparent, or can even be camouflaged in the website's background.

This is just a simple way of explaining how email tracking works. Sophisticated email tracking software uses a combination of tactics and tools to provide unique insight into how recipients engage with your emails:

Image via Yesware

For instance, marketers use UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitor) codes to track the performance of links in your email marketing campaigns.

By attaching a unique UTM code to each link in your email, you can track how many people click on each link and where they came from.

When you add UTM parameters to a link in your email, it will look something like this:

http://example.com/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring_sale

You can then use Google Analytics or another analytics tool to see how many people clicked on that link.

Now, let’s see how to create an email tracking pixel in Gmail and Outlook.

What Information Do Tracking Pixels Collect?

Depending on the tool you use for email tracking, the pixels can collect information on:

• Email open rates
• The number of clicks
• Email responses
• The number of emails marked as spam
• The location where the recipient opened the email
• Delivery status notification
• The device used by the recipient to open the email
• The time the email was opened
• How long the email recipient engaged with your email
• The number of email forwards

Email tracking pixels, however, do not gather sensitive information of the recipient such as their bank details, exact location, or private browsing history.

How to Create an Email Tracking Pixel in Gmail

To start, create a new image file that will serve as your tracking pixel. This can be done in any image editing software such as Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, or Paint.

Image via Paint

• Click on ‘new image’ and set the size to 1 x 1 pixel.
• Choose the “Transparent” option for the background.
• Save the tracking image with a relevant file name based on the email campaign. For instance, if your email campaign is about ‘Christmas offers,’ you can name the file “Christmasoffers.”
• If tracking several email campaigns, save the files with different names.
• Create the marketing email and place the image at the bottom of the email by using the image insert function. You will need to add the HTML image tag <img src=”Pixel image URL”>

You can also use Google Analytics to create a HTML tracking code.

However, Gmail does not support direct pasting of HTML pixel code in its body or email compose window.  You can instead use Chrome Developer tools to do this. Right click on the Gmail compose window and click on ‘Inspect.’

Image via Gmass

On the right side, a pane will then open up showing the HTML of the Gmail Compose box. Select the highlighted editable portion of the code and paste your custom HTML code to add your tracking code.

How to Create an Email Tracking Pixel in Outlook

It is easy to embed a tracking pixel in Outlook.

• Open Outlook and compose a new email
• Right-click on the email or choose the “Save as” option under ‘File’

Image via Microsoft

• Save the file as HTML by selecting the option from ‘Save as type’
• Use a text editor to open the saved HTML file
• Go to the “</body>” tag
• Place your tracking pixel above this tag
• Save the file and drag it into Outlook
• Your email now contains the tracking pixel

Doing these manually for every email marketing campaign can be a time-consuming and tedious task.

This is where email tracking software comes in.

Effective Email Tracking with Email Tracking Software

Good email tracking software can simplify and automate the entire email tracking process. It can help you track opens, time of opening, number of clicks, and so on.

How does email tracking work with the software? It typically involves embedding tracking pixels or unique links that send data back to the software whenever the recipient opens the email or clicks on a link.

Some of the most popular tools you should consider are: 

• Mailtrack: This Chrome extension can track unlimited emails for free. 

• Streak: A more advanced email tracking Chrome extension. It can provide information about email opens, the geographical location of the user, and view times. 

• Mailalert: This Gmail plug-in offers unlimited email tracking for free with real-time notifications. 

• Intelliverse Email Tracker: This is a free plug-in for Chrome and Outlook that can track unlimited email opens. However, you need to upgrade to the paid plan to access the advanced email tracking feature. 

• Mailtracker by Hunter: Here is yet another free email tracking software for Gmail. This extension provides real-time alerts to increase engagement, follow up with engaged leads, and boost your email marketing conversion rate. 

With email tracking software, you can select specific emails or create clusters of email addresses you want to track, and the email tracking tool automatically collects relevant data. As you can see in the image, Mailtracker can provide information on when the tracked email was opened, how many times, and on which devices.

Image via Email Tracker

How to Select a Good Email Tracking Software

Manually tracking emails can quickly become overwhelming. Fortunately, there are several reliable email tracking tools available. With some research and testing, you can find the best one for your needs.

Here are a few crucial characteristics you should look for in good email software: 

• Ease of Use: Your email tracking tool should integrate easily with the email service provider and other tools you use. Tracking setup should be simple, requiring just a few clicks and no technical expertise.

• Advanced Tracking Features: Email tracking is much more than monitoring email opens.A good email tracking tool should offer real-time notifications, track how many times an email has been opened within a specific period, identify if and when marketing emails land in the spam folder, and provide the exact time an email is opened by the recipient, among other insights. Such specific data is invaluable for email marketers. 

• Analytics Capability: An email tracking solution with analytics capabilities is an added advantage. If the tool can automatically collect, organize, and analyze email tracking data, your team can incorporate the insights into your email marketing strategy. 

• Compliance: This is a crucial feature to look for in a reliable email tracking tool. The software should comply with the latest data protection regulations and policies. The data collected and the method adopted should adhere to the legal restrictions in your operating regions. 

• Reliability: Before subscribing to an email tracking solution, analyze its reliability. Consider factors like client reviews, data reliability, track record, acceptance by email clients, and so on.

• Pricing: Price can be a key differentiator when using an email tracking tool at scale. Testing the features and usability will help you determine which tool offers the best value for your investment.

The Benefits of Email Tracking 

Now that you understand how email tracking works, let’s discuss its benefits for your business. 

1. Compare Campaign Results with the Industry Standards 

Email marketing continues to be one of the most effective digital strategies with the highest ROI. To accurately assess the results of your campaign, it's essential to compare your email marketing metrics with industry standards, and email tracking provides the valuable data needed for this analysis.

For example, if you run an ecommerce store, you can compare your campaign results with industry averages to gain valuable insights. Email tracking helps you assess your performance and understand your position in the market.

Image via Mailchimp

2. Monitor Email Engagement 

Email marketing is all about engaging your audience and nudging them to take the desired action. Email tracking helps determine how well your email messages have been able to engage the audience and move them into the sales funnel. 

When you track contact opens and clicks, you can measure the following elements: 

• Did the recipient find the message convincing enough to click the link? 
• The effectiveness of your email subject line
• Whether the email landed in the inbox or the spam folder
• The success of your email scheduling
• The accuracy of your email list segmentation
• How convincing the message was in prompting the recipient to click the link

In other words, sales reps can test different versions of email campaigns and track their performance to understand audience preferences. 

3. Identify Interested Leads 

Email tracking helps you identify engaged leads, especially in the case of an email blast where a marketing email is sent to a large group of subscribers. The email tracking feature helps you to identify the contacts who opened your email and showed interest in your offering. 

As a result, email tracking can help you save time and channel your resources more strategically toward the leads who would convert. 

4. Initiate Personalized Follow-ups to Boost Conversion 

The data collected from email tracking provides insights into open rates and identifies interested leads. This information allows you to segment your audience effectively and send personalized follow-up emails to further engage and educate them about your products or services.

Email tracking can further be employed throughout the lead nurturing process to personalize your communication more effectively. As a result, you can improve your conversion rate as well as email marketing ROI.

5. Optimize Campaign Performance 

When you incorporate email tracking as an integral part of your email marketing strategy, you are better equipped to optimize your campaigns. Tracking emails can help you make more data-driven decisions. All the insights and patterns gathered can assist in predictive analysis to create efficient road maps for future email campaigns. 

Challenges of Email Tracking 

While discussing how email tracking works, let us consider some of the challenges sales reps face while tracking emails. 

• Stricter Consent Requirements: The latest GDPR guidelines make it much harder for agencies to track emails. Popular email clients like Apple, Gmail, and Microsoft Outlook take extra precautions to protect user data and privacy.

As a result, brands must obtain more detailed and specific consent from subscribers to access basic information. Failure to comply with these guidelines could result in severe penalties for the sender. 

• Limitations in Scroll Depth Measurement: Another challenge in tracking email opens and monitoring read receipts is that these numbers do not indicate user engagement. Free and simple email tracking tools are not equipped for scroll depth measurement.

To truly understand the email recipient's engagement and reading habits, marketers need to invest in advanced, high-quality email tracking software. 

• Inconsistent Data: Email tracking data might be inconsistent for several reasons. There are instances when an email preview may incorrectly appear as opened to the reader. Conversely, if an image in your email fails to autoload when an email is opened, the tracking pixel will not activate. Even when the recipient opens the email, the tracking software does not register it.

Inconsistency may also occur when the users open the same email multiple times. As a result, your sales reps may struggle to identify realistic patterns and trends to measure the effectiveness of the email campaign. 

• Blocking Email Tracking: A common challenge in email tracking is the use of blocking techniques by both email users and service providers. Email clients may use image suppression or proxies to distort open and click data, while users can install plugins to block tracking altogether.

Best Practices for Effective Email Tracking 

Despite the challenges, email tracking remains a valuable tool for measuring the success of your campaigns. Here are expert-recommended best practices to track email opens more effectively.

1. Establish Transparent Privacy Policies

Email tracking should be executed responsibly. Before you begin collecting email performance data, disclose your company’s tracking policies to your subscribers. Be transparent in informing the users about the kind of data you are collecting, the purpose for which it will be used, and the cookies deployed. Based on this information, the recipients can agree or opt out of the tracking system. 

2. Stay Updated and Compliant 

Data privacy regulations may vary from region to region. As a marketer or business owner, you need to stay updated about the latest policies to track email performance effectively. It is also imperative that you review your company’s tracking policies periodically and update them to comply with the latest regulations to avoid any penalties. 

3. Monitor Relevant Metrics 

You will be collecting a plethora of data when you are tracking emails. This endless pool of unorganized data may be overwhelming if not handled wisely. Be clear about why you are tracking emails and what email marketing metrics you would track. Focusing on the relevant metrics and capturing the right data points can help you draw meaningful insights that boost your email performance. 

4. Make Email Tracking a Regular Activity 

Email tracking and analytics should be integral to your marketing strategy. Invest in a reliable tool to consistently gather relevant data, and over time, you'll be able to identify trends and measure performance effectively.

Combining email tracking data with customer insights from other sources allows you to gain actionable, realistic insights and make informed adjustments to boost email marketing ROI.

5. Optimize Subject Line and Email Content 

As an email marketer, you know the value of a well-crafted email subject line. Email tracking will yield fruitful results only when you make your subject line and email message compelling. 

Lure your customers with a tempting line so that they will scroll through the email and click the CTA button to visit your landing page.  If the readers don't find the subject line interesting enough, they may ignore it altogether and the purpose of email tracking will be lost. 

To help optimize your subject lines, you can use subject line tester tools to test and refine your approach for maximum impact.

6. Clean Your Email List 

The key to successful email tracking lies in maintaining a healthy email list. Periodically cleaning your email list, removing inactive users, and segmenting customers more effectively will ensure that the data you collect will be more reliable. This will aid in efficient email tracking and follow up with more interested customers to improve conversion. This will directly impact your overall email marketing performance.

How to Prevent Email Tracking

If you’d prefer to avoid email tracking, there are a few steps you can take to stop it.

In Gmail, go to ‘All settings,’ and go to the Images section. Choose ‘Ask before displaying external images,’ to disable email tracking pixels.

Image via Gmail

In Outlook Client or Microsoft Office 365, you can go to the Automatic Download section and select ‘Don’t download pictures automatically in standard HTML email messages.”

Image via The Windows Club

FAQ

Q1. How can someone track my email?

A. Marketers can track your emails to see if messages are opened or links within the message are clicked. They do this by using a technology known as email tracking which works by inserting a small code into the email body.

Q2. How can you tell if someone is using an email tracker?

A. It can be difficult to make out if someone is using an email tracker. Other than blocking external images on Gmail and Outlook, you can install tools such as PixelBlock or Ugly Email to automatically block email tracking.

Q3. Do emails get tracked?

A. Yes, emails can get tracked by marketers or worse, hackers.

Q4. Can you track a person with an email?

A. Yes, email tracking services allow you to monitor when and how a person interacts with an email.

Q5. How do I know if someone received my email?

A. In Outlook, you can request a read receipt which tells you when someone receives or has read your email.

You can also use email tracking software to check if someone has received your emails.

Q6. How does email tracking work to monitor engagement?

A. Email tracking works by inserting a small tracking pixel or unique URL into your email. When the recipient opens the email or clicks on a link, this action is recorded and sent back to the tracking system.

Q7. How does email tracking help in improving my marketing strategy?

A. Email tracking helps identify which recipients engage with your emails, allowing you to focus on leads who show interest. This data helps refine your messaging and optimize follow-up efforts.

Final Thoughts

We hope you now have the answer to your question, “How does email tracking work?”

Understanding email tracking in Outlook and Gmail is essential for any marketer or business owner who wants to get the most out of their emails.

With this guide, you should now have a much better understanding of how  does email tracking works and why it's important to incorporate it into your digital marketing strategy.

Of course, a well-rounded email marketing strategy will include creating engaging email campaigns, automating drip campaigns, and campaign monitoring. Our email marketing services encompass all these and more to help you ace your email campaign.