Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

You wouldn't be able to see if someone has marked you as junk mail in, say, Outlook, or whether they've blocked your email from their desktop (like if they identified your sending address as a bad email address), but you might be able to see if they've blocked your email at their server level if you get a bounce back from them (though most times the message just gets trashed).

In the email ASP that we offer, we do have the ability to report if an AOL user reported the message as SPAM, but that's only for AOL recipients.

If you've made your decision from an ethical standpoint not to use a tracking pixel for opens, though, I don't think you can justifuy tracking these other actions, either. I mean, either you want information from these people or you don't.

For what it's worth, I think it's a very, VERY small minority that is so vocally against using tracking pixels. And if you've got a true opt-in list, I don't think it's wrong for recipients to expect that you'd like to know if they're opening your email or not. After all, presumably they asked for the email, correct?

We have only one client who does not use the tracking image, and that is only because the receiving servers for a number of recipients (Fortune 500 types) see the 1x1 pixel and identify the message as spam (and trash it). It's not based on ethics in this case.

You can also proactively run your emails through a spam checker, such as: https://spamcheck.sitesell.com/

I've seen the privacy issue raised with regard to their use by spammers. But not really come across anything significant regarding their use by legitimate businesses in permission-based email.

As for the spam reporting, various ISPs offer feedback loops. These will tell you when someone complains to them about your email (for example by clicking the "junk mail" button in a webmail interface). See this link for an explanation:

https://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623337

I would add make the open and click recording feature. Otherwise you will never have any idea if you emails are getting through and what works best.

I have send many hundres of thousand legitmate emails with tracking and no one has ever complained.

If you are sending large volumes of mails on a regular basis, Then it is essential that your smtp is white listed with all the major isp's otherwise you will be permanently black listed in the system if there are too many people clicking on the spam button.

If you are using a professional tool such as 'constant contact' or 'Neolane' then you should be ok because the supplier will help you with white listings or if you are happy to send from their server, then it is already done.

The good thing about these tools is that you have absolutley complete stats on opening rates, click through rates, bounces, and for what reason it bounced. (Dead box, box over quota etc.)

it all depends on your volumes. if you are sending 50K mails a month then nothing to worry about really but if you are already into the 100's of K per month then start to get the services of a professional company to help you.

Whether you want to see the stats or not is irrelevant, what is relevant is that if you are not monitoring the number of unsubscribers and rejections, then you may well get you smtp permanently black listed and then you will have to start all over again with a new IP address.

I have been using "Constant Contact" for 6 months. It is easy to use and let's you track the opens, the reopens, the click through to links, spam and remove from list. They also give you an easy to make html code for a sign up box to place on your website. Plus it is very responsibly priced. I set up all my emails while using the free trial, and I didn't have to pay until I added over a certain # of email addresses. If nothing else I suggest just trying it out. https://www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp
PS I have gotten a lot of compliments on my professional looking email.