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My knowledge might be outdated but back in 2014? Gmail decided to download and cache images embedded in an email. This meant that a tracking pixel was only down
by tppiotrowski 4y ago
My knowledge might be outdated but back in 2014? Gmail decided to download and cache images embedded in an email. This meant that a tracking pixel was only downloaded once (before a user even opened an email) and every subsequent time the email was opened, the cached image was served from Gmail's servers, not the image origin server. This meant that tracking pixels became useless for Gmail (web based) users. I'm still under this impression today but maybe something has changed?
Edit: I said the pixel loads before the email is even opened. This is incorrect. The pixel loads the first time an email is read. Subsequent loads come from Gmail's servers.
- cdot2 4y agoThat happens for some emails but I've also seen Gmail emails that activated tracking pixels normally.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoAre those users using the web interface and using a Mail app to read their Gmail emails?
- cdot2 4y agoThat's an interesting question. I might have to test to see if that's causing it.
- xiaomai 4y agoI thought I remembered that too. According to this article (https://www.newfangled.com/how-gmail-image-caching-is-affecting-your-email-data/ https://www.newfangled.com/how-gmail-image-caching-is-affect...) they don't fetch the image until you open it (so only subsequent reads are affected).