Cold emailing: how do you track opens?

23 replies
Hey there,

I've seen a few people mention in various posts in this forum that they saw open rates on cold emails they send...

How do you do that? Are you using a software or Gmail plugin or ?

I use Active Campaign for email software, but I don't send any cold emails through it. I only add people in after they become a client and sign my agreement.

Thanks for your input!
#cold #emailing #opens #track
  • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
    There are many Gmail apps like Yesware to track opens.

    I prefer Gmass because you send out from it when connected
    to Google Sheets en mass and you can set up auto follow-ups if they don't respond.

    I think it's 8 auto follow-ups now.

    This means you don't have to manually go in and see who has opened or not.

    Best,
    Ewen
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  • I think the major services like MailChimp and Aweber, etc. track that.
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    • Profile picture of the author colorado1850
      Thanks anyway, but this is for COLD emails - which means these businesses have not subscribed to receive my emails. Mailchimp, aweber, etc do not allow you to send email to anyone who has not subscribed.

      Originally Posted by AffiliatePrograms View Post

      I think the major services like MailChimp and Aweber, etc. track that.
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      • Profile picture of the author unifiedac
        Originally Posted by colorado1850 View Post

        Mailchimp, aweber, etc do not allow you to send email to anyone who has not subscribed.
        That's not true. You can manually add subscribers to your list and send. You have a much higher chance of being shut down if they all unsubscribe immediately, but it's not illegal to send unsolicited emails.

        See my post here:

        http://www.warriorforum.com/email-ma...c#post10966277
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      • Profile picture of the author DABK
        What Ewanmack said, yesware and such. Before you send a gmail message, you can select to be informed when the recipient opens it... You can get a 'receipt' on deliver, on open, on both... You can know when they got it and if they opened it, when they opened it... So you can contact them with, Hey, say you looked at the message I sent you yesterday...

        Originally Posted by colorado1850 View Post

        Thanks anyway, but this is for COLD emails - which means these businesses have not subscribed to receive my emails. Mailchimp, aweber, etc do not allow you to send email to anyone who has not subscribed.
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by colorado1850 View Post

        Mailchimp, aweber, etc do not allow you to send email to anyone who has not subscribed.
        It's against their terms of use. Doesn't mean they don't unknowingly allow it. If you're using cold emails as a prospecting and lead generation strategy, it would be a waste of time manually sending. Use mailchimp, it's the way to go.

        If you still don't want to do it because it's not playing by the rules, then use Sendy, phplist, or other self hosted platforms. Bad thing is, the delivery rate is ass.
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  • Profile picture of the author imsolutionsgroup
    Most major email marketing services will allow you to track open rates. It's important to track open rates to see how successful your subject line is working.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Stewart0
    MailChimp is the best option for the cold emailing.
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    • Profile picture of the author BigFrank
      Banned
      Originally Posted by James Stewart0 View Post

      MailChimp is the best option for the cold emailing.
      Actually, they are one of the worst and will cancel your account within minutes of your mailing going out and returning high bounce rates. Don't know why you would tell someone that.

      Frank
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      • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
        Originally Posted by BigFrank View Post

        Actually, they are one of the worst and will cancel your account within minutes of your mailing going out and returning high bounce rates. Don't know why you would tell someone that.

        Frank
        Best as far as deliverability goes... You aren't wrong though, the problem isn't with the service, the problem is with laziness in uploading a scraped list. Have to run through a list verifier.. and after that, run it through an SMTP service like SES. That way your mailchimp account doesn't take as much heat for the important sends.
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  • Profile picture of the author mdallen
    Why would you want to cold email someone? If you did not get permission to mail them it is SPAM and is actually illegal... You will get flagged and shut down if you try and use the normal services. It is better to try and avoid violating the CAN-SPAM Act. Instead it is more profitable to build a relationship with opt-in subscribers. People who want your information are more likely to buy than someone who is sideswiped by your spam
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    • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
      Busy company executives have been surveyed as to which means of initial contact they prefer...email won.

      A former client of mine got in and sold to P&G, MackDonald's, Burger King, Home Depot, Western Union, Bank Of America to name a few well-known brands.

      A guy who gets tens of millions of dollars out of individual investors for his clients, one was the San Deigo Airport, uses email as his first point of contact to strangers.

      There's a lot of ignorance around the use of email.

      Best,
      Ewen
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmNameLess
      Originally Posted by mdallen View Post

      Why would you want to cold email someone? If you did not get permission to mail them it is SPAM and is actually illegal... You will get flagged and shut down if you try and use the normal services. It is better to try and avoid violating the CAN-SPAM Act. Instead it is more profitable to build a relationship with opt-in subscribers. People who want your information are more likely to buy than someone who is sideswiped by your spam
      I see people are still commenting on posts giving advice they know nothing about... that's great.

      Maybe you should read the CAN SPAM act...

      Did you know only 2 countries in the entire world require proof of opt in? Germany, and now Canada (partially).

      1.) You do not need permission to email a business.
      2.) Sending unsolicited emails, is not spam... according to the law.
      3.) The CAN SPAM act, is not about commercial emails. It is about mass server abuse, random email generation, phishing attempts and address book hijacking...
      4.) EVEN if you did some shady stuff with email, the can spam act needs you to have your address listed on the bottom of the email.. and an unsubscribe link... you are in can spam violation IF you do not remove the unsubscribe user within 30 days.
      5.) You can not spoof your email or from name... meaning, you cant send an email pretending to be someone at Google... The can spam act addresses this...

      Who would want to email businesses?

      Gee.. I dunno.. maybe people that want to make money?

      Guy in italy scrapes emails, sends an email offering a video audit, they respond and say yes, he sends it, he follows up and sells to them. Makes 20-30k/mo. He's a member of this forum.

      How about the other countless members that use email as a tool to generate leads and ultimately sales?

      I wonder why Charter communications does it? I wonder why home advisor does it? While we're at it... Why does Google do it? Why does facebook do it? LinkedIn? (I know, Google and FB are 3rd party validation emails, not the same but essentially still cold when sending invites)

      How about the most well known INBOUND MARKETING COMPANY... hubspot... why do they send unsolicited prospecting emails?

      Anyway, sorry to burst your fear mongering bubble here... just thought people deserved to know the truth instead of being preached ignorant misconceptions.

      Greatest advice ever... its more profitable to target people that want to do business with you... no shit sherlock. How do you get more people interested in doing business with you? Marketing. FFS.

      Just because you find a tactic distasteful or beneath you... doesn't mean it doesn't work.

      See ya guys later... I see not much has changed in my absence.
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      • Profile picture of the author affdaft
        Absolutely love this!! Need more guys who speak the truth on here rather than beating about the bush and hiding under a rock.
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  • Profile picture of the author mdallen
    Absolutely no reason for name calling. I am not ignorant when it comes to email marketing. If you want to go outside of what is legal that is up to you, good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
      Those 2 guys I mentioned are complying with the law, plus I never suggested going outside the law nor do I advocate doing it.

      "If you did not get permission to mail them it is SPAM and is actually illegal"

      Where does it say that in the CAN-SPAM Act?

      Best,
      Ewen
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    [DELETED]
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  • Profile picture of the author mdallen
    the part where is says you can't send to harvested emails as an example
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    • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
      Here's the FTC definition of harvesting emails,
      which by the way, I was not talking about, do, or recommend...

      Section 5 of the FTC Act. The CAN-SPAM Act

      https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/doc...e-business.pdf

      The law provides for criminal penalties including imprisonment for:

      harvesting email addresses or generating them through a dictionary attack (the practice of sending email to addresses made up of random letters and numbers in the hope of reaching valid ones), and

      taking advantage of open relays or open proxies without permission.
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  • Profile picture of the author colorado1850
    Thanks for all the input. I got what I needed.

    I especially appreciate those of you who answered the question rather than trying to advise me whether I should or should not
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  • Profile picture of the author Greg Green
    I have to say I love using banana tag, Not only does it track the opens but it also tells you what device and what link they clicked on, even after they open the email and click the link once it still tells you when they click each time after that. It's pretty cool, it's also a google extension.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    All you have to do is use image pixel tracking. This way you can track anything you want, even individual emails. You can even use the exact same image just copy/paste and rename the image URL.


    Example:
    • hxxp://domain.com/images/email-image-female-name.jpg
      • ashley@gmail.com
      • chloe@gmail.com
      • sophia@gmail.com
      • katherine@gmail.com
      • emma@gmail.com
      • emily@gmail.com
      • madison@gmail.com
      • olivia@gmail.com
      • abigail@gmail.com
      • elizabeth@gmail.com



    • hxxp://domain.com/images/email-image-male-name.jpg
      • michael@gmail.com
      • matthew@gmail.com
      • anthony@gmail.com
      • daniel@gmail.com
      • ryan@gmail.com
      • joe@gmail.com
      • jay@gmail.com
      • christopher@gmail.com
      • jacob@gmail.com
      • alex@gmail.com




    The way you see the email open rates is view your own web host server stats.
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  • Profile picture of the author J50
    You could send them a few at a time through www.ymlp.com. Does anybody actually generate solid prospects through cold emailing? I've always considered it a waste of time...
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