Tracking Email Open Activity in Marketo

[Muhammed_Suhail]

We noticed some discrepancies between count for Email Opened in Smart list report and Email Performance as Marketo track open activity when GIF pixel tracking getting downloaded. We found with help of smart list report using 'Not Opened' and 'Clicked link in email' filters.

Question:
As many email clients such as Outlook don't download images by default, if someone open their email without downloading or clicking to download all images, does Marketo will be able to capture Open activity?

Is it possible for Marketo to record Open Activity in an email we sent without any images?

I'd like to understand how Marketo capture Open Activity with invisible tracking pixel image?

[uditmathur]

Hi @Muhammed_Suhail ,

You can go through below links to get you quarries clarified

For Email Open activity without image https://nation.marketo.com/t5/knowledgebase/marketo-does-not-see-an-quot-opened-email-quot-activity/...

For How Marketo Track Email activity https://nation.marketo.com/t5/knowledgebase/how-marketo-tracks-email-activity/ta-p/248639

Hope this helps 👍

[Christiane_Rode]

Additionally, for the email performance report, there are certain assumptions that the report makes -- if someone clicks a link in an email, it will show an open on the performance report, because you can't click a link without opening an email. 

Opens are not really something to be used as a means of determining success, however, due to the unreliability of this metric. It's tough to say whether or not an "open" was actually done by a human -- Was it a Spam Checker? Was it Apple Mail or some other email client that preloaded the images and triggered the open? Or did someone have images turned off and didn't interact with your email at all but they still read it? It's all tough to say. 

[Zoe_Forman]

Hi @Muhammed_Suhail 

As @Christiane_Rode mentions there are some additional factors you should consider and. not rely on open and click metrics.

Do you have BOT activity switched on? As BOTS can cause false positives of opens and clicks.

Also dont just take the clicked linked metric as not all clicks are equal - you can exclude certain clicks in you reporting such as email Unsubscribe, Jobs page or other landing pages you don't wish to count.

[Muhammed_Suhail]

We'll enable it. Thanks !

[Disha_Goyal6 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Muhammed_Suhail, please see my comments inline:

Question:

As many email clients such as Outlook don't download images by default, if someone open their email without downloading or clicking to download all images, does Marketo will be able to capture Open activity?

Answer:

In Case of Outlook, As you said, Outlook doesn't download images by default. So Marketo will not capture Open until images are downloaded. Marketo will capture open when the user clicks on download all images or change the setting in outlook to automatically download pictures.

Question:

Is it possible for Marketo to record Open Activity in an email we sent without any images?

Answer:

Yes, Marketo makes an addition to your email before sending it. That is Adding of an invisible image to track opens. When a recipient views an email, their email client retrieves the invisible image from Marketo's servers.This triggers an Open Email event.

Question:

I'd like to understand how Marketo capture Open Activity with invisible tracking pixel image?

Answer:

When a recipient views an email, their email client retrieves the invisible image from Marketo's servers.  This triggers an Open Email event, no matter how long or short the view was.  An Open Email event also occurs when a lead clicks the "View as web page" link in an email. Only one email open event is tracked regardless of the number of times a lead views the email.

If User email clients block images that will prevent Marketo from tracking the open events.

Due to Marketo's distributed architecture, email open events may be delayed a couple of minutes between when the event occurs and when they appear in the lead's activity log.

Tip for getting better tracking stats on your emails:

Include an image in your emails (like a logo) so the recipient is encouraged to enable images to see your message.

Thanks,

Disha

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

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An Open Email event also occurs when a lead clicks the "View as web page" link in an email.

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I think you’re confused here. When you open the View As Web Page link, the pixel is usually (but not always, depending on browser privacy settings) downloaded since it’s in the web view as well.

Therefore it’s not the click that registers the open, it’s the pixel download as usual.