Common issues with email tracking data

Your email platform says 98% delivered. Your open rate says 4%. Those 96% didn't ignore you. They never saw you. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺: "Delivered" means the server accepted it. It doesn't mean: → It reached the inbox → It avoided the spam folder → It wasn't silently discarded → A human ever saw it Your ESP can't tell the difference. But your pipeline can. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: We tracked inbox placement across 4.2 million B2B emails. → ESP reported delivery rate: 97.3% → Actual inbox placement: 61.2% → Spam folder: 24.8% → Silently discarded: 11.3% 36% of your "delivered" emails are invisible. 𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀: → Gmail uses engagement history to filter new senders → Microsoft 365 scores sender reputation per recipient → Corporate filters learn from employee behavior → First email performance affects all future emails → Low engagement trains filters to deprioritize you 𝗨𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘀: → Gmail's spam filter blocks 10 million emails per minute → Microsoft flags 49% of first-time cold senders → Corporate IT can see you're in spam. They won't tell you. → Engagement-based filtering means one bad campaign poisons the next → Warm domains with no engagement still get filtered 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁: A 50,000-email campaign with 36% invisible delivery: → 18,000 emails no one ever saw → $270,000 in wasted pipeline (at $15/contact) → Damaged sender reputation → Lower placement on next campaign 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅: → Use seed testing to measure actual inbox placement → Segment by email provider (Gmail vs Microsoft vs corporate) → Warm new domains with engaged recipients first → Monitor engagement by domain, not aggregate → Clean disengaged contacts before they hurt your reputation "Delivered" is a technical status. "Inbox" is what matters. We verify inbox placement. Not just server acceptance. 😁

PSA 1: Gmail did not kill Email Open Tracking. PSA 2: Email Open Tracking is dead for years. Let’s unpack this. Recently, a screenshot of Gmail blocking images has been circulating on LinkedIn, accompanied by alarmist claims that this spells the end for open tracking. But here’s the truth: Yes, email open tracking relies on images being loaded — typically, by detecting whether a tracking pixel (a tiny, transparent 1x1 pixel unique to each email recipient) has been downloaded. No, Gmail did not just start blocking these pixels. The screenshot actually shows a specific scenario: Gmail blocks images when it identifies an email as likely spam or a scam. Google does this to protect you from being tracked by malicious senders, and it’s been working this way for years. So, does this mean your open tracking is safe and sound? Not really. While Gmail hasn’t started blocking all your tracking pixels, other Email Service Providers already do. Open tracking is frequently blocked by B2B email server admins, often inaccurate due to security bots, and impacted by privacy settings and browser extensions. So, is Email Open Tracking useless? Well… maybe. If you’re using it as a high-level trend marker for opens, it might still offer some value. But if you’re relying on it for behavioral decision-making or key performance indicators (KPIs), especially in the B2B market, it’s largely ineffective. What should you do instead? Click tracking is a better option — although still not perfect, especially due to security bots in the B2B market. Ultimately, the best approach is to focus on the final goal of your email. Why are you sending it? If it’s to sell a product, track product purchases instead. More to come, so keep on analysing #MarketingCloud #SalesforceOhana and #MarketingChampions!

Your open rats are lying to you. Not because your readers aren't opening. Because Gmail is swallowing your tracking pixel whole. Here's what happens: your email crosses 102KB. Gmail panics and clips it so it’s not enormous. It shows the first 102KB and buries the rest behind a tiny gray link: "View entire message." Your tracking pixel lives at the bottom. Gmail never loads it. Your reader opened the email. You'll never know. This isn't a theory. It's been quietly deflating email stats for years. And the culprit is almost never a wall of text. It's the stuff you don't think about - the social media icon grid in your footer (3-5KB, gone), the paste from Word styles invisibly bloating your HTML, the fonts, the colors, the six unnecessary links that felt like a good idea at the time. Simple emails don't just feel better. They survive the trip. The best email you'll ever send might be the one that looks like it took 10 minutes to write. Check your email file size. Today. Before your next send.

Many are asking me... Should I continue to track "Open Rates" on Cold Emails? It's still no. My answer hasn't changed. I had predicted this about 9 months ago if you want to look back. Why? Analyze the image in the post. Does the position of the "Report as Spam" increase the amount of people who click it by 3 on 1,000 recipients? If you said yes, you agree with me. This is a subtle way Google is asking you for more feedback on the quality of your outbound campaigns. Here are 5 reasons NOT to use Open Tracking for Cold Email: Reason 1: Limits Your Use Of Plain Text Emails Plain Text Emails get superior deliverability. Open Trackers can't be used in Plain Text emails. Reason 2: Inconsistent Tracking Open Trackers identify "opens" differently and ultimately can't prove someone opened the email. Every sequencer has a different way of tracking it. Reason 3: Email Fingerprints Open Trackers provide a fingerprint for your domain reputation. It's shared amongst everyone using the sequencer your company uses. Do you want to be part of this group? Reason 3: Misleading Data Secure Email Gateways open emails for their users to protect their privacy. Budget has increased significantly here and will continue to go up. Most of these systems will put your email in spam because of it. Reason 4: Easy To Block Even simple rules can block emails with open trackers. No AI required. It's simple. Reason 5: Bad Metric Teams and internet gurus are obsessed with open tracking. However, it doesn't mean your email has been opened. It could mean that, but it depends who you emailed. Here are 3 Insider Tips to Improve Deliverability Today: Insider Tip #1: Send to less technical audiences. This isn't my favorite advice to give. However, less technical audiences hit the report as spam button less. Insider Tip #2: Send to companies without Proofpoint, Cisco, and Mimecast MX Records. Prioritize companies invested in email security systems lower than ones who don't. Use LeadMagic to figure out what the company uses in the email finder. Insider Tip #3: Use LeadMagic's New Features on MX Detection & Valid_Catch_All Status to prioritize who to send to first. Prioritize valid (mail server checked) > catch_all. Use valid_catch_all status from LeadMagic which detects if the email has been found other ways. Prioritize Google or Microsoft email servers higher than Proofpoint, Cisco, and Mimecast email servers. This will lead to better delivery & reply rates. p.s. open tracking is not dead for email marketing, but that's not what I am talking about.

Trying to track email engagement just continues to get harder and harder. - Email opens can sometimes not be logged - Email Open and Clicks can be bot activity / spam filters (that still doesn't get filtered out by bot filters in your MA solution) - Emails sometimes are just meant to be "read" as the engagement but MA tools don't really give you the ability to track that or even action on it - Cookies can be blocked & utms can be stripped But yet in MOps, you rely on engagement to determine who we should still be contacting ... And if you don't and only rely on email verification - it's still wrong because email inboxes are still being left "active" even though the buyer hasn't worked there for years. Because of all of this, we really need to look at email metrics with a HEAVY pinch of salt and maybe adjust. My tips? - Do not score off high-level email activity (opens/clicks). These are just not reliable - Track actual "engagement" or completing a CTA for an email and make sure it can be viably tracked (see next tip) - If sending to an ungated offer - send the buyer to a page where they can click to download the offer or just log a view of the offer on the same page What do you think? What other issues have you come across? #revenuegrowtharchitecture #emailengagement #emailtracking

“Phil, why are you so against open tracking?” Here’s why 👇👇👇 Look— Salespeople are losing their jobs over this. This post might be technical. But it might also save your career… Open tracking works like this: → You turn your plain text email into HTML → You insert an invisible 1x1 pixel image → You don’t embed the image—you link to it via URL → When the email is opened, the server gets a ping → That GET request = 1 open counted Seems smart, right? But it’s not. There are 2 big problems with this system: 1. It’s unreliable 2. It’s harmful Let’s start with the first one. 𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗡 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗨𝗡𝗥𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗔𝗕𝗟𝗘 This metric is artificially inflated: → Big companies use cybersecurity bots to scan every email → Gmail, Outlook, and Superhuman cache and pre-load images That means your pixel fires... Even if the user never sees your message. Now for the real kicker. 𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗡 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗦 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗠𝗙𝗨𝗟 In May 2024, Google flipped the deliverability game on its head. Emails stopped landing. Pipelines dried up. Deals vanished overnight. I know salespeople who got performance warnings. I know others who straight-up lost their jobs. All because of one thing: open rates. Now, if you use a tracking pixel? Best case: Google slaps a warning on your email. “𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘮.” And guess what? Most users (especially non-technical ones) panic and don’t engage. Worse case... Big companies use a custom version of the “SpamAssassin” algorithm. → If it’s your first email → And you’ve got images, links, or attachments? Straight to spam. No questions asked. No trial. No appeal. So let me paint the picture (pun intended) You're hurting your campaign ROI For a number that lies to you. Be smart. Be safe. (And keep your emails clean) – Phil P.S. Anything I missed? Let me know 👇

Stop tracking open and click rates—immediately. Most people don’t realize this, but tracking these metrics is doing more harm than good. Here’s why: 1️⃣ Opens are misleading. They rely on an invisible pixel, and email providers like Gmail and Outlook see this as a privacy invasion. The result? Your emails land in spam or promotions. 2️⃣ Click tracking damages trust. When you modify URLs with redirects, spam filters flag them as suspicious—especially in cold outreach. 3️⃣ Bots inflate your metrics. Security bots often "open" emails and click links before real people do. Up to 75% of open rates can be false. 4️⃣ Tracking makes you look like a marketer. Email providers favor authentic conversations—not mass outreach stuffed with tracking pixels. What to do instead: Limit aggressive tracking—remove unnecessary tracking links. Focus on content quality—write simple, text-based emails that feel personal. Authenticate your domain—set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to improve trust. Encourage replies, not clicks—conversations improve sender reputation. Send in small batches—test deliverability before scaling (Instantly.ai helps you do it easily). Forget vanity metrics. Focus on what actually matters: landing in the inbox and starting real conversations. P.S. Video taken from Instantly.ai.

Is It Time to Say Goodbye to Open Rate Tracking in Email Campaigns? Relying on open rates to measure email success might be misleading. For example, you could have a 90% open rate, but if only 3% of people click through, is that really a win? 🔍 Google’s Latest Update: With Google’s new privacy updates, open rates are becoming less reliable. These numbers might not show the full picture of how engaged your audience really is. 🚫 The Problem with Pixels: Open rates are often inflated by bots, which can hurt your email deliverability and reputation. It’s clear that this metric might be doing more harm than good. 📈 Focus on Real Engagement: Instead of open rates, it’s better to track how people actually interact with your emails—like clicks, responses, and conversions. 🤔 What Do You Think? Are you still tracking open rates, or have you switched to other ways of measuring success? Let’s talk about the future of email marketing in a world that values privacy. #EmailMarketing #DigitalMarketing #GoogleUpdate #EngagementMetrics #PrivacyFirst #MarketingTips

I'm sure you've heard the news about Google flagging emails and hiding images based on them being potentially suspicious or spam. But this just applies to tracking pixels, right? WRONG!!! Sure, open tracking has become less reliable, and cold emails are more likely to be flagged. However, ANY IMAGES in your emails can trigger this warning, and many factors at play that can determine whether your message is perceived as risky/spammy. (It’s not specific to tracking pixels) The situations that are most likely to prompt the Gmail notice are: > When your content seems spammy.  > If you’ve had a history of sending spammy emails. (Which has hurt your sender reputation). > When you attach images to emails from domains where you've not had responses or engagement from recipients. > If you utilize a sending IP that is deemed to be less trustworthy by email providers. The best practices to avoid issues following this update: 1. Limit the usage of images in emails to where it’s absolutely necessary. (Avoid using images on outbound). 2. Use other metrics to track email success beyond open rates. (Positive replies, Spam rate, Domain reputation, Clicks, and Website visits). 3. Spam test your content. 4. Ensure authentication is running correctly on all your domains. 5. Throttle your email sending to stay within safe levels and avoid spikes.