A. How does our platform track and count opens
Finding out whether the newsletter you sent out has been read by your recipients or not is a simple but extremely effective way of gathering insight into your campaign's apparent success.
To actualize this tracking, each time you dispatch an email marketing campaign with our platform, an "invisible" pixel is embedded in your HTML code. This open-tracker pixel is unique for each campaign you send out, so every time one of your recipients opens your campaign, the unique open-tracker pixel is activated and your Total opens count is increased.
Our platform will automatically track opens on all the email campaigns you send out, as long as the campaign format is of the HTML variety. If you send a newsletter containing only plain text, we won't be able to add the open-tracker pixel, so it is impossible for us to offer you the open tracking service.
B. Are your recipients hiding their opens?
Even if your campaign contains HTML it is important to remember that in order for us to be able to track an open, the recipient of your campaign must have the "View Images Automatically" setting activated on their email account. If this option is not activated, the recipient must at least click on the "Display Images" button when opening your newsletter. If they do neither, the recipient will be only able to see the plain text content of your email campaign and the open-tracker pixel will not be activated.
This is why you might occasionally see a report indicating that one of your recipients has clicked on a link contained in your newsletter, without having opened your campaign at all. It seems peculiar at first but as you can now see that it is totally justifiable.
C. How to increase the accuracy of your statistics
Considering all of the above, we highly recommend that, along with the activation email you send to welcome your new subscribers, you also suggest that they add your sender address to their "Safe Senders" list or to their address book. This way, your HTML content will automatically be downloaded, giving you accurate information on whether your campaign was opened or not.
It also bears mentioning that if your HTML only contains image content, without any text, many of your recipients might end up staring at a blank page when opening or previewing your newsletter - at least until they choose to display the images as explained above.
Remember that both your subject line and text content should be catchy enough to make your subscribers choose to click on "Display Images". It is best to combine plain text and HTML content in every campaign you send out so that you attract the interest of every subscriber on your email lists - even those who prefer to automatically block images.