Track how many members has opened a newsletter after mailing?

Hi all,

Today I will send my first mailing of a newsletter to all my members, but most important is how to track how many people has read the message. How can I realize this?

Thanks for sharing!

 

or any tips and tricks are welcome as well

 

Look for a free HTML based counter and integrate it into the newsletter.

 

I'd recommend that you use Aweber to manage and send your list. It tells you the percentage that were delivered properly and the percentage that opened it. You can also track how many people clicked on a link in the newsletter itself.

I've been using it since late 2005. You'll also find that the deliverability is better than going out on your own.

Hope this helps!

 

what about placing a 1x1 image or something like that? I've read someone here on this forum had post something about that, but I cannot find it anymore. How does that works?

 

only prob with the 1x1 image is that outlook 07 auto blocks images unless specified.

 

The way I used to do it before using a email service is - in your newsletter put a small transparent or white pixel or small image and name it something related to that email like newsletter5-18-07.gif somewhere on the page. (it will need to sit on your server - so the image will need to be linked, not embedded)

Send the email - then check your stats (under Files --> Images) and see how many times the pixel was downloaded - it's not a perfect system since many email programs block images until the person allows them, and you must send your email in HTML format - which some mail servers do not allow

But it will allow you to get a general number.

Good luck

PurplePeeps

 

thanks! This what I need to know. I will try this

 

Great, I will try this.

thank you.

 

Another is to just pay a little bit of money for a newsletter manager. I've used Constant Contact with considerable success. It lets you track who opened it, who opted out, who reported it as spam, which links they clicked once they're inside. You just upload your contacts in a CSV file and build an HTML template to send it out.

 

I use PHP and MySQL for everything. You can also specify an image like this:

<img src=http://example.com/images/track.php?msgid=example>

Code (markup):

The PHP script can then be set to update the database/count the hit based on the msgid and then output a 1x1 transparent .gif

Let me know if you want some more code.

Regards

 

you can see open stats in aweber. the only problem with this is that you have to have the java opt in option on your site. the reason its a problem is that almost 10 percent of all web users have java disabled on their computers. kind of a catch 22 i guess. i just go the way of using their html form and write stuff that people will want to open.