Email marketing--How can I know how many mails are opened?

dearmonica · 06-22-2007, 01:16 AM

I am planning to do email marketing. About 500 mails have sent. I want to know the effects.

Can anyone tell me how to know the amount of opened mails? Or, does it have some special rules.

Thank you very much inadvance.

Jesse Vlasveld · 06-22-2007, 02:17 AM

I think you can never tell how many people actually opened the email. A percentage will also have it directed to their spam folder most probably.

DimlerJ · 06-22-2007, 02:29 AM

I also doubt that you can tell if someone opened your email, but if you have a stat counter or something like that you will be able to see the referrers. Visitors that came from yahoo, gmail, etc must have opened your email

eXweso · 06-22-2007, 02:58 AM

There is a software which used to give a report each time someone read your post...Dont remember now

NothingButNet · 06-22-2007, 04:03 AM

It really depends what software you use to send out these messages. Some software will tell you when the message was received. But this is really irrelevant. You'll know the effects when someone answers and makes an order. You could use a program from Eudora to trigger the requests of a receipt when your email arrives at its destination.

dearmonica · 06-24-2007, 08:45 PM

Thanks a lot, especially NothingButNet. I will learn the Eudora carefully.

Dear DimlerJ, I would really appreciate it if you can suggest some good stat counter for me. You know, those Chinese counter can only do well when ip is from China. : )

DimlerJ · 06-25-2007, 01:22 AM

Dearmonica, I personally use Google Analytics and I'm satisfied with them. The single inconvenience is that they update the stats once a day.

king2163 · 06-25-2007, 10:22 AM

Use any Analytics tool to know you refferal.

AnaB · 06-25-2007, 12:32 PM

If you have Aweber, Getresponse, Parabots or Email aces they provide you tracking reports i.e. how many opened the email, how many clicked on a certain link etc. Hence why it's important to go with a top company when it comes to email marketing. Afterall, it's where the bulk of business happens. Email Aces tracking was broken when I tested it last but Get Response and Aweber have never let me down. Parabots is a self hosted cheaper alternative with all the killer features (good for anyone just starting out and testing the waters)

Even if you choose some other company, look for detailed tracking features.

Best Regards,

Ana

zivkovicp · 06-25-2007, 01:12 PM

Guys, this is simple.

Create a 1x1 pixel graphic to be inserted into the email. Every time the email is opened it will request that graphic. By checking your stats you can see how many times it's been requested.

Simple, free, reliable.

You're welcome.

dearmonica · 06-26-2007, 02:16 AM

I greatly appreciate your help. I will try them.

Ana, are the softwares you mentioned free of download?

Providence · 06-30-2007, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zivkovicp

Guys, this is simple.

Create a 1x1 pixel graphic to be inserted into the email. Every time the email is opened it will request that graphic. By checking your stats you can see how many times it's been requested.

Simple, free, reliable.

You're welcome.

haha. you beat me to it. That is certainly free.

But it doesn't work if the email client doesn't allow graphic downloads.

viswablr · 07-04-2007, 04:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zivkovicp

Guys, this is simple.

Create a 1x1 pixel graphic to be inserted into the email. Every time the email is opened it will request that graphic. By checking your stats you can see how many times it's been requested.

Simple, free, reliable.

You're welcome.

I agree this is definitely the easiest way. But many email clients and web services like yahoo, gmail, now disallow this.

captainp · 07-04-2007, 07:59 AM

I've always made my own php counters, but I've never tried them in any emails. I dont see why it wouldn't worknicely though. There are some very simple and free php counters for download, if the webclient allows html, my guess, there wouldn't be a problem calling the script.

My 2 cents anyway... But now I'm looking into some of these others mentioned above myself because I'm looking to do some email marking in the near future.

dearmonica · 07-04-2007, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by captainp

I've always made my own php counters, but I've never tried them in any emails. I dont see why it wouldn't worknicely though. There are some very simple and free php counters for download, if the webclient allows html, my guess, there wouldn't be a problem calling the script.

My 2 cents anyway... But now I'm looking into some of these others mentioned above myself because I'm looking to do some email marking in the near future.

Thank you for all the replys. I have had a php counter in the website and check it everyday. But sometimes it has defaults.

I will share the experience when I know a better way.

Bluecircle · 07-05-2007, 12:09 AM

You should use Google Analytics to track clicks from the emails to your website. Are you using your own opt-in list, Aweber etc., or a third party to send spam (or nothing at all!)? Good luck and tell us how it goes.

webprofession · 07-05-2007, 03:47 AM

Yes, from Google Analytics, we can know if someone clicks on links and open the site.
but We can't know, how many people have opened/read the email.

ianternet · 07-10-2007, 11:39 AM

some email service providers will create a receipt but other than that I do not really have a good clue

tdgac · 07-10-2007, 11:42 PM

My first question would be are you referencing a visit to your own domain? The url you want them to click on, is it to your own website? If yes, an easy thing would be to have an alternate page for them to visit (like index1.html). Then you could just check your domain stats for visits to that particular link.

Hypertrack.com (I think that's it) might be an alternative... they used to let you have one free account, so that may still be an option. Or just type in free tracking into the search engines and see what comes back. There may still be some out there.

The pixel thing used to work - but again you'd have to be delivering all your emails in html not text.

As already stated above, lots of autoresponders have systems in place that would replace your website url with their coded one. Easy to log in and check the effectiveness of your ad that way.

Another tool is GoTryThis.com - you can track everything, split test, etc., etc., and it's easy to setup on your domain. Full admin panel, etc. There are two versions, the white hat one I think is the only one currently still selling.

LOL, I think the hardest part about tracking is to remember to do it

dearmonica · 07-10-2007, 11:58 PM

Thank you for all your advice. I put a counter in the website and see the records every day to figure out how many comes from mails.

I think it's the most effecient way to me now.