Emails Opening Automatically

[Jeremy_Bosch2]

Hi Marketo Community,

I am curious if anyone has any knowledge of ways that an email client could automatically trigger an open in Marketo.  We have literally thousands of leads that have opened every email (or nearly every email) but never clicked a link.  We lead score on email opens and utilize it as an important criteria for our definition of a Marketing Qualified Lead so understanding if the data coming from Marketo is correct vs not is important. 

Any help would be appreciated! 

[Dan_Stevens_]

Many corporate anti-spam filters will not only auto-open and email, but auto-click on one or all of the links.  An approach to deal with the latter is discussed in this thread: Spam filters registering clicks?

Opens is a very unreliable metric.  Most of the time it may not even signify a true open.  For example, Outlook users who delete the email may still trigger an open if the email renders in the preview pane before they delete it.  I'm surprised to hear that you give so much weight to an email open - especially MQL status.

[Grégoire_Miche2]

HI Jeremy,

That could be the behavior of an anti-spam system. It could also just be people browsing through their emails with a preview pane...

You also have thousands of people who do not show as opens and yet who did open your emails but did not download the images (and therefore not the open tracking pixel image).

Bottom line is: we do not score on email opens. Never

-Greg

[Robb_Barrett]

Here here to Greg...

Opening an email is not a sign of ability to purchase. It might show product interest but that's all. If they answer poorly to BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Time) questions and get passed to sales because they clicked on an email and visited a web page you're going to have angry sales people not trusting Marketing.

I'm going through the same thing with my company so you're not alone.

Now, let's say your brand represents many product lines all vying for the same lead. You can use these behavioral scores to show product interest. If two products want to email, choose the one with the highest product interest score.

Of course, you're a Marketo guy and not the one making the calls so probably, like most of us, you're the nerd who knows the right answer but can't influence change. 

[Lauren_Aquilino]

To answer your question, yes. And to support everyone else's response, we tread lightly on opens. We do score +2 (on a 100 point threshold) for an open, but as far as taking any action on opens.. we really just use them as a trending metric of what message is resonating and what is not.