5 ms·

> 86% of the users open How did you measure this if there's literally no email clients left out there that load remote content by default?

lifeisstillgood 10y ago
I would love to know this too ...
Nullabillity 10y ago
Gmail loads pictures by default these days.
- huhtenberg 10y ago
  Yes, but not when email is actually opened.
  - jermaustin1 10y ago
    This my be true now, but when I was working and doing the marketing for my products, it reported accurately. I'm pretty sure it still does honestly. According to Customer.io, the change was to make images load by default, not requiring the end user to click Show Images. Thus making the open rates more accurate. https://customer.io/blog/gmail-loading-images.html https://customer.io/blog/gmail-loading-images.html
    - jordanwallwork 10y ago
      I don't understand that - if Gmail opens images ahead of time and caches them, then how will you know when a customer has actually opened the email?
      - Nullabillity 10y ago
        AFAIK, it doesn't. It will proxy all images through its own servers (and thus hide your IP), but it happens as your browser requests it and is not cached.
lexicality 10y ago
GMail does. It bounces the images via a server to strip out IP info but it opens them. AFAIK all webmail providers do too, otherwise there wouldn't be so much of a market regarding email marketing with open rates and remote updating content (eg https://movableink.com/gallery/autotrader https://movableink.com/gallery/autotrader)
- derefr 10y ago
  I'm honestly confused that Gmail would proxy their images to anonymize them, but wouldn't just make that proxy a caching proxy, such that a given image URL would only ever get one retrieval from Gmail's servers. It'd be a huge win for them bandwidth-wise.
  - stingraycharles 10y ago
    I would assume that a unique pixel is generated by Mailchimp for every recipient to prevent this form of caching.
    - jermaustin1 10y ago
      Similar, every URL in the email is completely unique to that 1 user's email. That is how you track opens and clicks back to a single user.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    > I'm honestly confused that Gmail would proxy their images to anonymize them, but wouldn't just make that proxy a caching proxy, They do that, but images in mail have unique URIs per recipient to enable this sort of tracking. Before Google enabled caching, it was possible for sender to figure out the exact number of times an email was read, now you can only know the first time it is read.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
zrail 10y ago
Most of the big providers will open images by default (sometimes via a proxy) if your message passes DKIM and SPF.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
iraldir 10y ago
Probably wrong numbers because of gmail. Gmail will cache the image automatically, regardless of wether or not you open the mail. This is done specifically to prevent people to know that you open their mail. So you must have a shitload of false positives in there.
- jermaustin1 10y ago
  As far as I'm aware, google doesn't load the image unless you open the email. That said, these numbers are from 3 years ago prior to that change. It is the last information I have from my job with Humankind before I left for a corporate gig.
Jach 10y ago
Inaccurate metrics on a fancy slide deck has never stopped anyone before.
ptero 10y ago
I'm suspecting both 86 and 56% numbers as well, but 23% reply and 2% unsubscribe is likely correct, which is way better than I would expect.
- sooheon 10y ago
  Though far more probably file as junk thank take the time to unsubscribe. Unsubscription process is notoriously annoying.
  - jermaustin1 10y ago
    We tracked our junk/spam reports (which is reported back by all popular email services and software) and it was never terrible, but I don't have the numbers on a per email or campaign metric. As a whole we saw a 0.5% spam report rate. At its highest it hit 25% but that happened due to a glitch in the marketing platform that spammed every signup on one of our campaigns one night with around 100 "thank you" emails.
  - gk1 10y ago
    > Unsubscription process is notoriously annoying. Really? Clicking a link? And Gmail often even adds their own "Unsubscribe" button.
    - sushid 10y ago
      Not the parent but sometimes, you have to check all the different mailing lists and/or they require you to retype in your email. Some might find this a bit more annoying than simply marking the email sender as spam.

lifeisstillgood 10y ago

I would love to know this too ...

Nullabillity 10y ago

Gmail loads pictures by default these days.

huhtenberg 10y ago
Yes, but not when email is actually opened.
- jermaustin1 10y ago
  This my be true now, but when I was working and doing the marketing for my products, it reported accurately. I'm pretty sure it still does honestly. According to Customer.io, the change was to make images load by default, not requiring the end user to click Show Images. Thus making the open rates more accurate. https://customer.io/blog/gmail-loading-images.html https://customer.io/blog/gmail-loading-images.html
  - jordanwallwork 10y ago
    I don't understand that - if Gmail opens images ahead of time and caches them, then how will you know when a customer has actually opened the email?
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      AFAIK, it doesn't. It will proxy all images through its own servers (and thus hide your IP), but it happens as your browser requests it and is not cached.

lexicality 10y ago

GMail does. It bounces the images via a server to strip out IP info but it opens them. AFAIK all webmail providers do too, otherwise there wouldn't be so much of a market regarding email marketing with open rates and remote updating content (eg https://movableink.com/gallery/autotrader https://movableink.com/gallery/autotrader)

derefr 10y ago
I'm honestly confused that Gmail would proxy their images to anonymize them, but wouldn't just make that proxy a caching proxy, such that a given image URL would only ever get one retrieval from Gmail's servers. It'd be a huge win for them bandwidth-wise.
- stingraycharles 10y ago
  I would assume that a unique pixel is generated by Mailchimp for every recipient to prevent this form of caching.
  - jermaustin1 10y ago
    Similar, every URL in the email is completely unique to that 1 user's email. That is how you track opens and clicks back to a single user.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > I'm honestly confused that Gmail would proxy their images to anonymize them, but wouldn't just make that proxy a caching proxy, They do that, but images in mail have unique URIs per recipient to enable this sort of tracking. Before Google enabled caching, it was possible for sender to figure out the exact number of times an email was read, now you can only know the first time it is read.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

zrail 10y ago

Most of the big providers will open images by default (sometimes via a proxy) if your message passes DKIM and SPF.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

iraldir 10y ago

Probably wrong numbers because of gmail. Gmail will cache the image automatically, regardless of wether or not you open the mail. This is done specifically to prevent people to know that you open their mail. So you must have a shitload of false positives in there.

jermaustin1 10y ago
As far as I'm aware, google doesn't load the image unless you open the email. That said, these numbers are from 3 years ago prior to that change. It is the last information I have from my job with Humankind before I left for a corporate gig.

Jach 10y ago

Inaccurate metrics on a fancy slide deck has never stopped anyone before.

ptero 10y ago

I'm suspecting both 86 and 56% numbers as well, but 23% reply and 2% unsubscribe is likely correct, which is way better than I would expect.

sooheon 10y ago
Though far more probably file as junk thank take the time to unsubscribe. Unsubscription process is notoriously annoying.
- jermaustin1 10y ago
  We tracked our junk/spam reports (which is reported back by all popular email services and software) and it was never terrible, but I don't have the numbers on a per email or campaign metric. As a whole we saw a 0.5% spam report rate. At its highest it hit 25% but that happened due to a glitch in the marketing platform that spammed every signup on one of our campaigns one night with around 100 "thank you" emails.
- gk1 10y ago
  > Unsubscription process is notoriously annoying. Really? Clicking a link? And Gmail often even adds their own "Unsubscribe" button.
  - sushid 10y ago
    Not the parent but sometimes, you have to check all the different mailing lists and/or they require you to retype in your email. Some might find this a bit more annoying than simply marking the email sender as spam.