Posted by Introduction
You sent an excellent email and patiently waited for a response. But nothing came back. This might leave you wondering how to confirm if someone read your email.
If your email requires an answer, it can cause frustration for you. You might send it again or send a speedy follow-up message.
Wait!
Before taking action, check if the recipient even opened your email in the first place. Knowing the email’s status gives you the power to plan what to do next. This post will discuss different ways to check if someone opened your email.
Ways to see if someone has read your email
Here are three ways to know if someone has read your email. So, let’s get started.
- Email Tracking
- Read receipt in Gmail
- Image tags
The Importance of Email Tracking
Knowing if someone opened your mail is beneficial in various situations, such as making personal connections, dispatching company newsletters, etc.
For sales professionals, tracking emails aids in selecting an optimal strategy for each prospect.If they read and neglected your message, you can inquire about their interest level. Conversely, those who still need to open the mail may respond to a direct follow-up.
Digital marketers can better optimize their strategy by understanding what opens and interacts with their emails. People must modify the body content if they are reading but not taking action on the message. If they aren’t opening the messages, then alterations are likely necessary for sending timings or subject lines.
Different email tracking methods
Email tracking has its place even inside companies. For example, Managers can measure effective communication via open rates on significant all-staff emails. Deciding When to Use Different Email Tracking Methods
Pixel tracking:
All of these tracking approaches have merits but need appropriate implementation within workflows. Pixel Tracking is preferred for estimating open rate stats on large-scale email campaigns and newsletters.
Read receipts
When you need confirmation that an email has been opened, use read receipts. This works well for essential individual emails like contracts, sensitive HR letters, client reports, medical files, and legally mandated confirmations.
Link clicking
The link-click tracking feature is suitable for evaluating open rates and engagement with your newsletter or mass email campaign.
API Tracking
You can use API tracking to accurately monitor specific emails in real time and integrate them into automated workflows, including live personalization applications.
How to Get Read Receipts in Gmail
In Gmail, a built-in feature enables reading receipts when requested by email senders. However, this service needs to be provided in the accessible version of Gmail.
Despite this limitation, several third-party services enable tracking of opened emails on Gmail. But you want to use Gmail to read receipts without third-party involvement. In that case, you’ll need a Google Workspace account, previously known as G Suite, representing Google’s paid business cloud software product.
If you have Google Workspace, here are the steps to activate read receipt requests on Gmail,
- Login to the Admin console. From its home page, follow this guide: Apps > Google Workspace > Gmail > User settings.
- Within user settings, find “Email read receipts,” then select the appropriate choice based on your needs.
- After these adjustments, scroll down and click “Save.”
After enabling read receipts for individual emails in your workspace, you’ll be able to request them. While drafting a new email, before sending it, click on the three vertical dots located at the compose windows’ base, then choose ‘request read receipt’ from the menu that appears.
Once activated, you’ll be informed when someone has accessed your email. Although you can ask recipients to confirm reading your email using Gmail read receipts, they can also decline this confirmation request.
This suggests that Gmail read receipts may only sometimes provide definite proof of mail openings. The reader may access your email unbeknownst to you.
Insert an Image Tag Into the Email’s HTML
Another way to see if your email has been opened is through image tags. HTML image tags act like email tracking pixels and give you insight into whether your emails are being opened or not.
How do these image tags function? First, insert a traceable image into the HTML code of the email. When the recipient opens this mail, the image downloads, alerting you about the event.
A significant benefit of using image tags is that, unlike some Gmail-read receipts, they do not require approval from the recipient to function.
Nonetheless, there are some concerns to note. Firstly, you must have good HTML knowledge to add this code personally. In addition, there could be issues involving privacy and data protection.
Data privacy issues involve,
- Collect recipient data without permission if encryption isn’t employed.
- Risks of exposing your email content if the image host lacks security
To use these tags properly and ensure safety, here are a few recommendations,
- Utilize secure hosting with end-to-end encryption
- Be transparent about tracking and obtaining necessary consent
- Track activity exclusively related to your goal. They can substitute for read receipts when reporting mail opens if used carefully. But before opting for such a tracking system, we value privacy.
Increasing Deliverability Rate
The first thing that comes into view when businesses start monitoring open rates is that most emails aren’t getting delivered because of outdated or incorrect information on their list.
If your deliverability rate needs to be up to mark, myEmailVerifier may be helpful. It offers solutions like verifying new additions to your list or cleaning up existing records with an accuracy rate of 99.9%. This service also extends to third-party email tools.
Try out myEmailVerifier for free today and get your mailing campaigns in order.
FAQs
How do you know if your email has been opened without a receipt?
There is more than one way to determine whether your emails have been read. Automation tools are our personal favorites for achieving such tasks.
Does the recipient get notified if I ask for a read receipt?
Yes, the recipient gets a popup message asking them to respond immediately. This can be bothersome and intrusive for some users.
Is it ethical to track read emails?
Yes, tracking email read is ethical when done right. However, you could face privacy issues if you’re too invasive or incorrectly set things up, especially with image tags.
Can recipients block email tracking?
Indeed, recipients can avoid the automatic download of images, which severely affects the data-gathering process, by using image tags or Chrome Extensions.
Why should I track email open rates?
Tracking opened emails is essential in formulating a subsequent strategy. Bombarding your targets with countless emails without any known open rates doesn’t make sense.
This analysis also lets you know if there’s an issue with your skills or delivery methods. Making suitable adjustments ensures successful mailing campaigns lining up ahead.
How do I see if someone has read my email?
You have several options:
- Request to read receipts from your Gmail Workspace email account.
- Attach an image tag to your email’s HTML code.
- Apply a pixel-based tracking app for the mailing service.
Using a dedicated email tracker would be better, considering Gmail read receipts could prove inconsistent and limited.