When I send work emails, I like to track my messages using an invisible image that contains a tracking pixel. This helps me know who opened the email, what device they used, and where they are located. However, sometimes Gmail’s display images don’t work, which hinders the tracking process. So what do you do in this case?
What are Gmail Display Images?
Gmail display images refer to the images and graphics within the email. Usually, Gmail display images are enabled in the settings, but you can choose to turn them off.
How do Gmail Display Images Affect Email Tracking?
When the email is opened, a tracker for a hidden image is loaded from the tracking servers that use IP addresses and browser headers to determine the location the email was opened. The tracker can identify the device the email was opened on.
Email tracking software places an invisible pixel image in your emails that can detect activity on that email. Simply put, an invisible image is placed in the tracked messages that can notify you when the email is opened or clicked on.
For over a decade, Gmail has made it necessary to automatically display images in emails – which means Gmail started displaying the image on your behalf and protecting users from harmful content.
Before this change, users had to choose to display images in every email. Email senders (or tracking programs) could log every time the email was opened based on the image download.
Now that images are displayed automatically, it is more difficult for the software to determine exactly who opened them. Google may have opened the image on behalf of your recipient.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Automatically Displaying Images in Gmail
There are advantages and disadvantages to automatically displaying images in Gmail for commercial senders.
The bad news: You lose the ability to identify the device (desktop, mobile, etc.) that the recipient used to open the email. You lose the ability to determine the location of the open. It becomes harder to distinguish who opened the message.
The good news: You always know when your email has been opened. You don’t miss any emails opened by someone who doesn’t display images.
How Can Commercial Senders Obtain Email Data Without Gmail Display Images?
Although email click notifications aren’t perfect, link click notifications are.
Email tracking technology allows tracking links by wrapping them in a tracker. And since each link has its own tracker that does not rely on Gmail, you will know every time someone clicks on a link in your email.
You have a better chance of “knowing” the person who clicked on the link – especially if you sent one link to multiple recipients. So, you might receive a notification that someone opened your email, and then later receive a specific notification about who clicked on the email link. This means that the person who clicked on the link is the same person who opened the email.
Click tracking is a better metric for commercial senders, as it provides insight into the most engaged segments of the email. This data enables senders to optimize their campaigns and segment the audience.
There are some other techniques to enhance email tracking intelligence that we recommend trying: placing images in your email or signature image. By allowing recipients to see a full image in your message, it is more likely that the email tracking software will be able to pinpoint exactly who opened the email. Use unique subject lines. Since email tracking is not always able to identify the person who opened the email, making the subject line more specific helps you identify which filter/group within the company is engaged in the conversation.
How to
Adjust Your Image Display Settings in Gmail
Now that we’ve discussed the marketer’s perspective, let’s take a moment to talk about the user. If your emails are less visual than you’d like, you may need to adjust your Gmail settings so that images are always displayed.
Here’s how you can do it on desktop. Step 1. Go to Settings.
Navigate to Gmail and log in. Make sure you’re logged into the account for which you want to edit the image settings.
In the top right corner, click on the settings wheel.
This will open Google’s sidebar “Quick Settings.”
Click on “See all settings.” Step 2. Find the Images section.
Scroll down in the “General” settings until you see “Images.” Generally, your settings will be set to “Always display external images.” However, you can choose “Ask before displaying external images.”
This will give you, as the recipient, the ability to allow images to display or not.
Don’t let Gmail’s image display stop your email marketing efforts.
While changing Gmail’s image display was a significant change, it’s not something email sales reps should worry about in the future. If anything, the change in image functionality in Gmail messages means that reps should rely on more engaging email metrics like link clicks.
Related Topics:
– Email tracking
– Email tracking software
Don’t forget to share this article!
Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/email-tracking-gmail-display-images
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item:not(.lwrp-no-posts-message-item){
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item img{
max-width: 100%;
height: auto;
object-fit: cover;
aspect-ratio: 1 / 1;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item.lwrp-empty-list-item{
background: initial !important;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-link .lwrp-list-link-title-text,
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-no-posts-message{
}@media screen and (max-width: 480px) {
.lwrp.link-whisper-related-posts{
}
.lwrp .lwrp-title{
}.lwrp .lwrp-description{
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-multi-container{
flex-direction: column;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-multi-container ul.lwrp-list{
margin-top: 0px;
margin-bottom: 0px;
padding-top: 0px;
padding-bottom: 0px;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-double,
.lwrp .lwrp-list-triple{
width: 100%;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-row-container{
justify-content: initial;
flex-direction: column;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-row-container .lwrp-list-item{
width: 100%;
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item:not(.lwrp-no-posts-message-item){
}
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-link .lwrp-list-link-title-text,
.lwrp .lwrp-list-item .lwrp-list-no-posts-message{
};
}
Leave a Reply