Lead Scoring discrepancy for "Opens Any Email"

[Mikes_Jones]

I found a discussion related to this, but it was started back in 2011, so I am starting a new discussion on this issue because I couldn't find anything that was up-to-date.

As some of you may know, if a user receives an email but does click on the "Download All Photos" dialouge, teh email is not counted as being opened. This means that a lead could technically go into your email and click a link without Marketo recognizing that the email was opened. Instead, the email would have "0 Opens, 1 Click".

From a lead scoring perspective, this can throw some things off - especially when working with transitioning rules in Engagement Programs.

So my questions are

1) is there a workaround for this?
2) Is the best solution as simple as removing photos from an email? Are there other ways to embed photos into an email without them technically being considered "photos" and thus recquiring the user to download all photos.

In our case, the only photo we have in our email is our logo.

Interested to hear your feedback, thanks!

- Malik

[Josh_Hill13]

Generally I do not look at Opens as a metric of any reliability because of this issue. Some folks score on Open still, but you are right that it might throw off a carefully calibrated scoring system.

There is not a workaround other than to stop using Opens.

I am unclear why removing images from your email would matter at all. Marketo places a pixel in the email automatically.

[Mikes_Jones]

Ah, so the email would have the "download all photos" even if there was no photo in it, since the Munchkin code technically counts as a photo?

[SanfordWhiteman]

@ Malik yes the only way for the tracking image to phone home to Marketo is for the user to allow images.

And as for (2) yes there are other ways to embed images into email, and some of those ways (though not supported by Marketo on the authoring side) allow for images to be automatically shown in some mail apps.  However there is no one-size-fits-all way of making images appear without user intervention.  Thus you can't have emails be image-dependent.  Remember that images represent two strong pain points for the recipient: [1] they are used in spam messages to obscure text content; [2] they (if not embedded) make untrusted connections to remote webservers.  Embedded images can defuse [2] in some apps but never [1]..

IMO the perfect marketing email has a well-edited text-only part and an HTML part that is enhanced  if the user downloads images but doesn't depend on images for layout nor information.  That said, I definitely have some trusted senders that send emails that are almost all images!  The philosophy is "be conservative in what you generate, even if you are liberal in what you personally accept."

[Justin_Cooperm2]

We have logic that will not allow a click in an email without a corresponding open event. The Email Performance Report would not show you 0 Opens, 1 Click. 

If there was no click, however, and the recipient had "Download all images" disabled then we would not know that the email was opened.

[Mikes_Jones]

@Sandford

I understand that the best practice might be to avoid images altogether, but if the Munchkin code is technically an image, than that means that the email is going to prompt a "Download All Images" dialouge regardless. Or did I misunderstand?

 

[Mikes_Jones]

@Justin

Do you mind going into detail about this logic? I don't seem to be familiar with it.

Thanks.

[Justin_Cooperm2]

Read this for more details:

https://community.marketo.com/MarketoArticle?id=kA050000000KypPCAS