How can I know that my Gmail message was seen?

Pat Walls

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Published: March 4th, 2020

Email tracking is a very common feature for many Gmail CRMs and Gmail plugins.

I think it’s worth explaining how this works.

How does it work?

It’s pretty simple. With every email you send, there is included a tiny image (1 pixel by 1 pixel) that has some special data attached to it.

When your recipient opens that email, their email client tries to load the image which essentially tells you that the email has been opened.

Is it accurate?

Not always. Some email clients block these requests. And sometimes the email gets forwarded to others, which will trigger the pixel for anyone else who gets that email?

Best email tracking software? Here are the best ones I’ve found:

Pigeon for Gmail - (full disclosure, I am the founder)
Streak
Mailtrack

With Pigeon, here’s how simple it is to see if someone read your email:

And Pigeon has some other pretty awesome features:

CRM inside Gmail: Stay organized and on top of your leads, inside Gmail.
Mail merge: Send mass emails, inside Gmail.
Automated follow ups, inside Gmail.
Google Drive integration
Canned responses for common emails.

Follow up

If you really want a response to your email, you may want to follow up with that person, and potentially follow up a few times.

You can use the Gmail snooze feature, which will bump an email back to the top of your inbox if you want to be reminded, or you can use a more advanced tool like Pigeon for Gmail to send multiple automated follow ups.

What’s cool is that you can do this inside Gmail :

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