How do you know if your email message has been read by the recipient(s)?

One option is that you embed a tracking image in your outgoing email messages. If that image downloads on to the recipient’s computer, it is a confirmation that your email has been opened and read. Obviously, this technique will only work if the recipient has enabled automatic image downloads and that he or she is reading your email in HTML and not plain text.

There’s another option as well. If your outgoing email messages include one or more hyperlinks, you may even consider taking the help of a URL shortening service like goo.gl for email tracking.

The idea is pretty simple. Before including an hyperlink in your email, shorten it with goo.gl first. Now if the recipient opens your email and clicks on the link, his activity will be captured which you can see by simply adding a + sign to the Google short URL.

For instance, if the short URL of your link is goo.gl/abc, you can see the click stats for that short URL on goo.gl/abc+ or goo.gl/info/abc. Hover over the click points in the graph and you’ll even get to know the time when the person clicked your link in the email.

This of course is based on the assumption that your email messages have one or more hyperlinks and that the recipients are keen to click on them for you to track their activity.

Related: Tracking Clicks in Emails Using Google Analytics