[SOLVED] How to track who opened their email from a newsletter?(Other than loading a img)

[ltrem]

Hi guys!

 

I need a solution or suggestion...

 

It may happen that our company send newsletter to people who subscribed.

 

I would like to know how to track WHO opened/readed the newsletter other than loading a img via a php script.

 

This would work (I tried it and it work)

<img src="script.php" />

 

in script.php there is something like

header("Content-Type: image/jpeg");

$imgPath = "http://www.mywebsite.com/";
$image = @imagecreatefromjpeg($imgPath);

imagejpeg($image);
imagedestroy($image);

 

But I need another solution in case the recipient is a hotmail account that blocks html content. If the person that open the email and doesn't allow the full content to load (hotmail ask the user the permission before loading image).. I'm not sure that the script is executed.

 

Thanks!

 

[Psycho]

The easiest solution would to provide a link in the email to the newsletter rather than the newsletter itself. Many email clients will suppress images by default anyway beacuse spammers would use images in email to track valid email addresses. Although, depending on the "format" of the newsletter it might be possible to include a link that get's activated when the document is opened. But, this again could be seen as a security issue on the user's part.

[ltrem]

Although, depending on the "format" of the newsletter it might be possible to include a link that get's activated when the document is opened.

 

Could you give more information about this? What you mean by "the format of the newsletter"? And what you mean by activating a link? How could we do that? 

 

Thanks

[Psycho]

Well, I can provide a couple examples. But, if you have a document type where you can include a link to an image or some other element, which will load when the document is opened, AND you can dynamically create the document then you could create a different document for each recipient with a different link. That way when the user opens the document, then when the document attempts to load the image (or other object) then you could capture who opned the newsletter. It all depends on whether the document supports link to external objects. I know that it could be done with MS Word, but trying to create those dynamically may be problematic.

 

Again, the easiest implementation would be to just include a link to an HTML version of the newsletter hosted on your server. Each email would include a slightly different link, such as

www.mysite.com/getNewsletter.php?u=12345

 

Then that page will get the user ID from the $_GET values and you can track accordingly.

[nadeemshafi9]

wow mjdamato very nice,

 

just to let you know when constructing the email you can send extra feilds in the header eg user_id = 1 etc, i dont know what you could do with this but maybe you will think of somthing.

 

i used it to sift out emails based on user id inside my emails app.

[roopurt18]

There is nothing you can do to track with 100% certainty who opened or read the newsletter.

 

As you've pointed out yourself, they or their mail client can ignore or choose not to load images.

 

You can add things to headers, such as receipt notices that tell the users mail client to send a response message when the user reads the e-mail.  But mail clients are free to ignore these headers as well.

 

MJ's idea of a document with an external link may or may not work.  I know I wouldn't be using any mail client that automatically opened PDFs or MS Word files without prompting me first.

 

You have to assume in the worst case that your newsletter will be read by the reader as plain text, which provides no tracking mechanisms.

 

What you can do is entice the reader from the newsletter back to the main site.  This can be done a number of ways depending on the site.  If you place article summaries in the newsletter intended to grab the reader's attention and then include a URL to the full article, on your site, you can track that way because they'll follow the URL back to your site.  Or you can include a URL back to a special promotion offer, coupon, or something else consumers would want that is hosted on the main site.

[Psycho]

MJ's idea of a document with an external link may or may not work.  I know I wouldn't be using any mail client that automatically opened PDFs or MS Word files without prompting me first.

 

I was not stating that the email client would open the document automatically. The question was to find out who "opened" the newsletter. I stated one possible option was to have the attachment to include some sort of link in it (such as to an image) which it would load when the document was opened. I am not suggesting this as a "best practice" solution because it could be seen as underhanded and I'm not sure how difficult it would be to dynamically create these documents each with a different link for each user.

 

I still think the best solution is to have a link in the email to the user and the link opens the newsletter (HTML, PDF, etc.) but the link will include the cutomer ID or some other identifying information. When the request for the document hits the server you can grab that identifier. It's really the same logic as the embedded images in the email, but won't be blocked by the email client.

[ltrem]

Thanks for your reply guys... But I still can't put in my head that it is not do-able... I just tried this website : www.readnotify.com... I sended an email to my hotmail account and this website was able to track it at the second I opened it... No img, no link in the email.... hotmail opened it without problem and didn't ask me to accept anything... and the email got tracked.

 

When I came back to www.readnotify.com it was quoted as "READ @ 10:14:32 blablabla"....

 

How could THEY do it and not us?

 

Help

[ltrem]

I just found out there was a 1pixel .png imagine in the email  but still... hotmail didn't asked me if it could be open or not...  I'm lost

[Psycho]

I just found out there was a 1pixel .png imagine in the email  but still... hotmail didn't asked me if it could be open or not...  I'm lost

 

What is so hard to understand? Hotmail does not suppress images by default. You need to turn that option on. MSN Hotmail Help

 

So, use an image if you want, but doing so will prevent you from tracking anyone who has images suppressed in their emails.

[ltrem]

Sometime it ask me to authorize the content while other time it doesn't... and NO I didn't placed them in the "AUTO ACCEPT".... so we'll stay here I think... it's impossible to do!

 

Thanks!