Tracking emails and link clicks
Overview
- When you send a mass email, you probably would want to know if anybody opened the email and how effective your message really was by tracking who and how many times the email was viewed.
- If you add links in the emails (e.g. links to your website) you may also want to find out who clicked on the links and which links were clicked on the most.
- There are two types of emails in Wild Apricot and you can use email tracking for both types:
- Manual emails: These are emails you send manually, see Sending e-mail blasts.
- Automatic system emails: These are automatically sent by the system based on your settings e.g. renewal reminders or event notifications that you schedule to go out at specific times.
- Emails are tracked for a period of three months from the date the email is sent.
- Email tracking must be turned on at the time of sending; turning tracking on afterwards will only affect new emails, not previous ones.
How email tracking works
If you enable email tracking, Wild Apricot will modify the email in the following 2 ways:
Tracking if email is opened
Using a system called Clear Pixel Tracking, a tiny (1 pixel x 1 pixel) transparent image is inserted into email message. When the email is opened, this image has to be displayed, which sends a request to our servers - this request is recorded as an "open". This image should not impact how your mail is displayed.
 | Please note the following:
- Some email programs block images from displaying (for example, Microsoft Outlook preview pane does not normally load images by default) - in this case email open will not be known to our servers and thus not recorded as such.
- Once the initial recipient's opens are recorded, the email will not be further tracked if it is forwarded to someone else (i.e. image uses a unique code for each email recipient. Thus, if someone forwards the message, our servers can't know if it was opened by the original recipient or someone else it has been forwarded to)
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Tracking if a link is clicked
Wild Apricot modifies all links so they are first redirected to another address where the clicks are tracked / counted, and then on to the actual link address. This process should be invisible to the recipients.
Enable tracking in system emails
To enable email tracking in system emails, go to Settings > Organization details and check the "Tracking" box on the right side of the page.
Enable tracking in manual emails
Enable / disable tracking specifically for each manual email by checking the box labeled "Enable link and open email tracking".
Viewing email usage statistics
To view who opened the email and if they clicked on any links within the email, go to Settings > Email log.
See also
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