Jessica Andrews
VP Marketing
Email open tracking used to be a popular way to check if your emails were being noticed. But, in recent years consumers have become more concerned about their privacy. As a result, many technology companies have made substantial changes to how consumers can be tracked via email. In this article, we’ll explain how email open tracking works, the recent developments that have made it less effective, and a new alternative that’s worth checking out.
What is email open tracking?
Email open trackers are a 1 pixel by 1 pixel square transparent image that’s embedded into your email. You and your recipient can’t see it, but when that image is opened, it sends a signal back to your tracking tool to say that image has been loaded, which means the email has been opened.
Is email open tracking still effective?
In 2022, Apple took action on email open tracking with Apple Mail’s Privacy Protection. Apple Mail opens all emails received automatically, and protects the user’s IP address. The sender will think every email they send has been opened, but won’t be able to see the recipient’s location.
Then, in August 2024, Google started testing a new warning banner at the top of emails when they contain an email open tracker.
Gmail is now blocking open tracking pixels using a generic tracking domain, and also giving people the opportunity to mark these emails as spam. The more times your domain gets marked as spam, the more likely your emails will land in the spam folder by default. This currently doesn’t impact marketing-style emails designed with HTML, since those have images that aren’t solely meant to track people.
Our friends at Reply.io – a leading sales automation platform – saw a dramatic drop in email open rates among their users the week following Google's change.
Email open tracking alternatives
If you're using email open tracking, whether with Copper or another tool, it might be time to ask yourself: do you really need it? Does simply opening an email show genuine interest? Think about how you deal with cold emails—I usually open them, quickly realize they're not for me, and then either unsubscribe or hit delete.
A better way to gauge engagement and intent is through email click tracking. Now available with Copper’s Business plan, any email sent from Copper’s web or mobile app will track when someone actually clicks a link in your email, which is a much stronger sign of real interest.
But remember, even if someone clicks a link, if they still don’t respond, they’re likely not interested!
