How Does Yesware Tracking Work?

Yesware customers love our email tracking feature because it helps them close deals faster. If you haven’t used it yet, imagine sending an email to your key prospect and knowing when and where he or she opened your message. Cool right?

Here’s how email tracking software makes your day easier:

• Send emails from your same account while tracking opens, clicks, and attachment views
• Be alerted in real-time when prospects are engaging with your outreach
• Follow up with prospects when you’re top-of-mind

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How Email Tracking Works

We use the same technology that email newsletter services use by relying on a tracking pixel embedded at the end of your tracked message. We decided to adopt this technology for one-on-one communication so that salespeople can take advantage and know exactly when prospects are opening their messages.

In order to ensure that email tracking is enabled, visit the “Yesware” drop-down menu in the top left of Gmail. When you select “Preferences”, a pop-up window will appear with options to toggle on/off various features. From here, you can toggle on the “track opens” and/or “track links.”

Once you save a reload Gmail, the settings will take effect.

When you are drafting your emails, be sure to note if the Track button in Gmail compose is checked.  If you hover over the Track button, you will see your current settings.

To track attachments uploaded from your computer, click on the green paperclip icon at the bottom of the compose window.

Once you choose the file you’d like to track, insert it into the message and click send. The tracked attachment will appear as a stylized link in your message.

If you’d like to track attachments using Google Drive, you will first want to hover over the “Track” box to make sure that Link Tracking is enabled. If it is not enabled, click “Change Preferences” to adjust your settings. When you have confirmed that the “Track” box is checked off and your link tracking is enabled, select “Insert Files using Drive” from the bottom of the Compose window.

Yesware can also track links clicked in emails if you enable link tracking and tracks your audience’s engagement with presentation tracking.

Install in less than 60 secondsEmail tracking for Outlook and GmailTry Yesware Free

What It Means For You

Once your recipients loads our tracking pixel or clicks on a tracked link or attachment, they ping our server with their IP address. We’ll generate a notification to let you know where they opened your email when they opened it and even what device they used to read it.

All these email tracking notifications appear as popups and will also populate your inbox dashboard.

Common Issues

Sometimes, recipients have their images disabled. In this case, our tracking pixel won’t be loaded, and we won’t be able to notify you that the message has been opened.

Just be aware that if the message was sent to several people, colleagues were CC’ed or the message was forwarded, we can only tell you that ‘somebody’ opened your message. Even still, our customers tell us it is fascinating to see when ‘somebody’ opened their message several times. That either means they love your email or it is being forwarded throughout the organization.

You can also enable Link Tracking to see what content your prospects are interested in. This tracked link won’t change the look of the message but may cause some issues if your recipients’ spam filters are high. In these cases, try formatting your links as words, rather than full URLs (i.e. “Check out our website” vs. “Check out www.yesware.com“). This ensures that your message ends up in your recipient’s inbox.

Privacy and Legality

Yes, it is legal for us to track all of this information. This technology has been used for almost 20 years in the marketing world. We are partially funded by Google Ventures and work with them to monitor any legislation that may prove otherwise.

Our strict terms of use outline how the tracking information is used, and we’ll discontinue any accounts that violate these terms. The personal information that we collect is for our application purposes, and we’ll never share any information without your consent. You can read more about our privacy policy here.

Have a question that wasn’t covered in any of the above? Feel free to view our FAQ and submit a question through our Help Center. We’re here to help and we’d love to hear from you!

See more guides on email tracking here:

• How to Track Email Opens in Gmail
• Gmail Read Receipt Alternative
• How To Tell If Your Email Has Been Read