How to Know If Someone Opened Your Email

Is there a way to know if someone opened my email? 

A question that can keep you curious for days. And, if you’re struggling to find the answer to this question, our blog has the solution for you. 

You can quickly know if someone has seen your email by following a few simple steps. And this understanding will help you become more strategic in your email marketing approach. I am sure you would not like to move ahead with vague assumptions but have a concrete plan.

According to The Radicati Group, a technology market research company, the total worldwide email traffic is estimated to be over 319 billion. The user’s inbox is full of emails; this makes it essential to know if they checked your email. Accordingly, you can write a follow-up email based on their activities.

There are two ways you can know if they checked your email, and it will only take a few minutes to get it done:

1. Using an email tracking application/tool.
2. Requesting a read/ open receipt – common with most email clients.

1. Email tracking tools

If you are actively running cold email outreaches, your email engagement becomes your decision-makers for your next set of emails. And to know if someone opened your email is one of the first metrics most of us look for. 

Here is when an email tracking tool comes very handy, making this process smooth as butter with only minimum effort needed from your end. 

There are many powerful email tracking tools in the digital world these days. Here are some of them to get you started: 

• Saleshandy 
• Yesware
• Streak
• Mixmax
• Hubspot
• ContactMonkey
• Gmail Read Receipt – provided by Gmail itself
• Outlook Read Receipt – provided by outlook

These tools go in-depth to tell you if your email was opened or not, when it was opened, and if the recipient clicked on the link that you might have inserted.

Benefits of email tracking tools

Saleshandy, for example, notifies you exactly when someone opens and clicks your email. You don’t need to switch between dashboards to get this valuable insight.

With one Saleshandy account, you can connect multiple mailboxes and track your emails. You have to spend a few minutes setting it up, and Saleshandy will do the rest.

They also offer a unique count of how often the recipient opens your email and clicks on your link to understand your recipient’s behavior better. The best part here is that Saleshandy doesn’t include any hidden Saleshandy logo, signature, or label for its promotion.  

It simply does what is needed to be done: track the emails and notify you as soon as it is opened and clicked.

Know if someone read your email on Gmail using Saleshandy

How does email tracking tools track your emails?

All the email tools mentioned above, when used, put a tiniest invisible tracking pixel of 1*1 size to the emails you send using their plugins or software. So, when your recipient will open the email, you will be notified that your email has been opened/read.

2. Request a Read Receipt

Once you learn how to know if someone opened your email, you might be surprised at the number of people who read your emails and just decide to go mum. Another way, rather than the one mentioned above, to know what really happens to your emails after hitting send is to enable the option to request return/read receipts with the email that you send.

But, you have to bear this in mind: these requests only do half the job. Your recipient might decide to decline the requests. That means you won’t be getting the receipt responses to the emails you sent. Also, there are email platforms though that don’t allow to track whether the emails were opened and read or not.

Let’s take a look at how to activate the receipt features in Outlook and Gmail G-suite platforms:

Outlook: Request a read receipt

You can send two types of requests to know if someone read your email on Outlook – whether the email gets successfully delivered and whether it was opened and read.

If you are an Outlook user, here is a quick process you need to follow through if you want to request a return receipt in Microsoft Outlook:

1. Go to the top menu bar and click Options.
2. Head to a Delivery Receipt and Request a Read Receipt.
3. If unchecked, mark to activate the read request receipt
4. And it is done!

Gmail: Request a read receipt

Google doesn’t allow you to request a read receipt in the free version of Gmail. However, it is possible if you are a premium user (use Google’s paid business cloud software G Suite) and have administrative rights to the platform.

This access will tell you if someone read your email on Gmail.

1. Go to the setting tab from your G Suite account
2. Head to the user settings
3. Under the user settings tab, scroll down to Email Read Receipt
4. Now, simply turn on the read receipt

Otherwise, you may ask the administrator to do it for you.

What can set your emails apart?

You worked hard and did everything to set your email apart. You then learned how to see if someone read your email and implemented it, only to find out that your email open rates are disappointing. What can you do more? How can you optimize the overly optimize emails?

Well, while you were dead set on making your email perfect, there is a possibility that you might have ignored the email subject line.

What’s important in that you ask? It’s the first impression on the person you are emailing and I say that is one of the most important thing about pitching. Making the right first impression.

Here are some of the email subject lines that will make your emails shine brighter:

Read more: 20 Best Subject Lines for Cold Emails.

All the above subject lines will entice your receipt to open and read your email. So, use them wisely to make sure you get noticed.

Summing it up

You have worked hard to design, write and optimize that email. The last thing you would want is to have it tossed into the bin, or totally to go unread. If you are using the free email platforms, you can always trigger request receipt feature. And, that’s how far it gets.

However, if you need to discover more than which email was opened or not, you need to look elsewhere. Email tracking tools will not only track email, and the link opens but also offers you extra intelligence you need to boost your business and sales. However, most of them are paid, and the free version might come with some limitations.

I hope you learned how to tell if someone opened your email. If you have any questions related to it, you can share them with us in the comment section.