One of the most common issues Individuals and businesses today face is when you have sent an email days ago but still haven’t received any replies back. You don’t know if they opened your email or if you should send another follow-up message. Email open rates are critical for any business that relies on email communication. If you are running an email marketing campaign, it can have a huge impact on your email ROI. After all, what good is an email campaign if nobody opens your email? By tracking email open rates, you can adjust your strategy to ensure that your messages are being seen by your intended audience. Luckily, there are a few simple ways to tell if someone has opened your email.
Two of the methods that we can use to know if someone opened your email or not are by using email tracking software and requesting a read/open receipt. Let’s explain how these methods work!
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Using Email Tracking Application
Whether you are an individual or a small business running an email marketing campaign, you need to know if your emails are being opened. You can use these 3rd party email tracking applications to track your email open rates. Most of these email tracking apps offer paid services which you might have to subscribe to in order to use the tool. These third-party trackers are known to have more features than your regular email clients including email analytics, and metrics that can help you get quick insights into email performance.
Few of the most popular email tracking applications are –
- HubSpot
- Mixmax
- YesWare
- Saleshandy
- Mailtrack
These tools offer web applications as well as browser extensions designed to work with any email client including Gmail, YahooMail, or Outlook. You can get unlimited free email tracking with Mailtrack but your emails are tagged with Mailtrack signature. HubSpot is another great email tracking app that offers both free and paid plans.
Request a Read Receipt
Another way to know if someone opened your email or not is using a “request a read receipt” feature provided by the email clients. However, these requests only work when the recipient agrees with the request. If the recipient declines your request of reading request, you still won’t know if he/she opened your email. Additionally, not all email clients offer a request a read request feature. Below we will discuss how you can enable this on Google Workspace and Outlook accounts.
Request a Read Receipt on Gmail
You can request a read receipt if you are a premium Google Workspace user. However, Google doesn’t allow request a read receipt feature on free Gmail accounts. You can enable this feature from the settings if you have administrative rights to the platform. With this enabled, you can track if the recipient has opened your email or not.
To enable request a read receipt in Gmail:
Step 1: Log in to your Google Workspace account
Step 2: Go to Settings
Step 3: Go to User Settings
Step 4: Scroll down to Email Read Receipt
Step 5: Turn on the Read Receipt
If you are not the admin of your Google Workspace account, you can ask your administrator to enable the feature.
Request a Read Receipt on Outlook
You can track your email on Outlook using two types of requests. These requests include:
- If your email was successfully delivered
- If your email was opened and read
On Microsoft Outlook, here’s how you can request a return receipt:
- Login to Microsoft Outlook
- Click on Options from the menu
- Select any type of receipt. Check “Request a Delivery Request” if you want to track if an email was successfully delivered. Check “Request a Read Receipt” if you want to track if an email was opened.
Also Read: How to Detect and Stop Email Tracking
