What is email tracking?
Our email tracking feature lets companies know if customers are opening their emails. The feature works by adding tracking pixels to emails with tracking enabled, which registers when a recipient opens an email, it will work as an email read receipt.
Email tracking will allow you to see when any email or link sent from within your Pipedrive account was opened by a recipient.
Email tracking allows to track if the recipient of the email opened it and if there’s any link sent in that email, it’s also possible to check if that link was opened (it has to be selected in the settings). But this information is available only when emails are sent from Pipedrive (using the Email Sync feature).
Previously, the tracking details were only visible to the email owner in Pipedrive. Now, if the email is shared, any user with access to the email and the linked entities (such as a deal, person, or organization) can view the tracking details. For example, if an email is linked to a deal and the user has visibility over that deal, as well as the associated person and organization, they will also have access to the email's tracking information.
Note: It's important to remember that your customers may have email providers that prevent tracking email opens and link clicks. In 2021, both Apple Mail and Gmail implemented new mail privacy policies to protect their consumers.
In these cases, Pipedrive will not be able to provide any tracking information for those emails and the emails performance reports will not reflect this data.
How does the email tracking work?
Email tracking is done through the use of image pixels, which are 1×1 pixel images (in other words, images too small for the human eye to see), embedded in the HTML of an email message. These pixels don’t affect the way an email looks and each pixel is loaded with an individual tracking number.
When a recipient opens the email, the tracking client recognises that pixel has been downloaded, as well as where and on what device.
To take into consideration:
The tracking pixel can become unintentionally triggered by the opening of the tracked email through the Sent folder of the user’s email client/provider. To avoid triggering a false open alert, we suggest users to stay within Pipedrive for the purposes of sending and opening tracked emails. Always be sure if this is happening or not as this is very important for us to know whether or not it is an error or expected behaviour.
If a contact that you are emailing has images disabled in their email client – or if the email is set to plain text (instead of HTML) – the tracking pixel won’t work, and email opens will not be tracked. Link tracking will still function as expected.
Emails with empty bodies will not be tracked, as the tracking pixel is rendered in the email body.
Pipedrive won’t be able to provide any tracking information for emails if the customers have settings within their email client that prevent the tracking of email opens and link-clicking.
If an email is sent to several recipients – for example, through cc'ing or forwarding – Pipedrive won’t be able to tell which recipient opened the email but will still inform you that the email was opened at a specific date and time. This will allow you to track if an email was opened by multiple recipients, but it’s worth noting that it only applies to the original recipients. If the email is subsequently forwarded, this will not be tracked.
Customers may have email providers that prevent tracking email opens and link clicks. In 2021, both Apple Mail and Gmail implemented new mail privacy policies to protect their consumers, which means Pipedrive will not be able to provide any tracking information for those emails. You can find additional details about email tracking and privacy in this Knowledge Base article:Email tracking reports with Gmail and Apple - Knowledge Base | Pipedrive
What is included in Pipedrive email tracking feature:
Open tracking: that will give information about when the recipient opens a sent email.
Link tracking: that will give information about when any links embedded in your emails are clicked by the recipient.
Notifications for tracking activities: that will inform you about the above tracking data through the notification bell of the Pipedrive app.
All these 3 options have to be set separately.
How can I enable email tracking in my account?
To enable email tracking in Pipedrive account, you should go to Settings > Email sync > Account and select the 'Email tracking' options that you want to use, like showed in the image below:1. Enable Tracking: Navigate to your Pipedrive settings and enable email tracking. Tracking settings must be turned on manually during setup. 2. Check Default Settings: Ensure email tracking is toggled on when the eye icon in the email compose window is blue. This indicates that tracking is enabled as the default setting until manually disabled.
How to use the email tracking feature
When these options are enabled, the send mail functions – in the Mail tab and detail views – will have the icons to enable the tracking options.
To enable tracking for the email you’re about to send, you should click the “Track link opening” or “Track email opening” options in the send email area, as shown in the image below:
Look for the eyeball icon in the interface; if it is highlighted, tracking is active.- Ensure campaign-specific tracking settings are activated by enabling the open and link tracking options in the Engagement section while composing campaign emails. These options must be manually selected by default.
In order to track email opens or clicked links, these options need to be clicked before sending the email. Email tracking will only work on emails sent from Pipedrive.
Once you have sent an email, the tracking settings will be saved and set as default for future emails until changed again. Email tracking information is only available per user and cannot be shared with other users.
When you send an email with these options enabled, you’ll be able to check in on this information within the sent email itself in the Mail tab. You can also view the information in the detail view by hovering your mouse over the associated open and link icons. If the option is enabled, you’ll also receive a notification in the Sales Assistant.
If tracking options are not enabled before sending an email or campaign, tracking data will not register. It is critical to activate these settings during the email composition process.
Once an email has been opened or a link has been clicked, the icon will become opaque and hovering over the icon will provide information about when the email was opened or when the link was clicked.
Once activated, the email tracking feature will remain enabled for all future emails unless manually turned off, facilitating streamlined tracking across campaigns.
Why are my emails marked as open when they cleary haven’t been opened?
If you go to the sent folder on your email provider and open that message, then this will count as an email being opened once. Most of the time, that’s the reason why the email was shown as opened when it wasn’t the recipient of the email that did it. To avoid triggering a false open alert, you should stay within Pipedrive for the purposes of the sending and opening of tracked emails, as opening it within Pipedrive will not trigger the pixel.
Aside from that, other possible reasons can be the recipient’s web email client (e.g., Gmail web app) or phone caching the email or some Gmail scanner that triggered that. Unfortunately, when related to settings on the recipient’s email client, there's no way for us to prevent that from our end. What we should recommend is for you to use both open and link clicking tracking at the same time as link clicking tracking is more reliable.- Multiple open notifications should not necessarily be interpreted as repeated views by the recipient. Automated processes such as email scans or caching by the recipient's email client can also trigger these notifications.
How can I accurately measure email tracking?
Pixel-based email tracking is only accurate if your customers’ email providers allow it.
So, while email tracking is helpful, there is no way to know if customers are opening your emails in the first place. However, link tracking is not affected by policies or caching, making it one of the most reliable engagement metrics.
You should also focus on reliable and actionable data like deliverability, bounces, unsubscribes and spam reports, as shown in the following image:
When interpreting tracking data, it is important to consider the context; automated scans and caching may alter the apparent engagement trends, and open counts should not be over-relied upon as an absolute measure of customer behavior.
Use the Insights feature in Pipedrive to create custom tracking reports that show open rates, click-through rates, and other engagement metrics to analyze and optimize campaign performance.
For instance, spam reports and unsubscribe requests may help you identify content irrelevant to your customers or diagnose weaknesses in your campaigns. At the same time, bounces can indicate outdated contact details or other issues with your email lists.
These metrics do not only provide insights into email performance and what resonates with your customers but also help you protect your sender reputation.
If you are worried about campaign tracking and reporting, you can learn more about Campaigns reporting in this article.
Apple Mail Privacy Protection
Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) is a new set of features that allows users of the Apple Mail app or desktop email app to hide information about when, where, and how they open emails.
The following operating systems have implemented this privacy protection:
iPadOS 15
macOS Monterey
watchOS 8
Any users running these operating systems and using the Apple Mail app with MPP turned on will no longer be trackable using pixel images. This applies across Apple’s suite of devices, including the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.
You can learn more about Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) on this page.
Gmail image caching
Google made a new change to how they display images in Gmail. For security reasons, instead of loading images from an external host server each time someone opens an email, Gmail stores these images locally on its own proxy servers.
Email images download automatically in all Gmail accounts, but users can configure this manually anytime. If your recipients disable the option to download images automatically, the tracking pixel will not download automatically and the open tracking will not count towards your reports.
Google image caching only applies to recipients who access their Gmail through their browser or a Gmail Mobile App, such as what you may find on your Android or iPhone device.
Recipients who access their Gmail through a desktop client (such as Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) will download images as usual and report accordingly.
How do these changes affect my insights reports?
The fields that are affected are listed below.
Segment by: open tracking
Table view: opened time (tracking)
Summary view: opened, not opened
Filters: open tracking, opened time (tracking)
Open tracking (opened, not opened)
Total opens
Unique opens
Email open time
Email open date
Recipient country
Open rate
Geo-location