tech question

[iiiiiiiiiiiiii]

so, i am going to send out some emails to editors and stuff about my fashion photography. the company i get my mailing lists from says that for an extra fee, they can tell me who opened the email (vs who didn't) and who clicked through to my website. i am thinking, if they can do it, i should be able to do it for free. do you know how this is done

Comments

[gentlemoose]

Skeevy tracking tactics.

embed a link to an inline 1x1 pixel transparent image with a unique (per-recipient) name in the email. if the recipient has not disabled image loading in his/her email client, when the message is opened, the mail program will reach out to your webserver for *uniquely-named-file*, a request for which can be tracked by your webserver and matched against a database of sent emails/image names.

It's fuckweasel business.

[obscurerichard]

I'd avoid trying to use a web bug to track click-throughs to your web site. See the web bugs:

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html

See also PKR's ISPs acceptable use policy: (from http://www.speakeasy.net/tos/)

E-Mail Spam
Transmission of unsolicited e-mail from anywhere within our network, distributing unsolicited, commercial, email which advertises any portion of Speakeasy's network, IP or domain space, hosting content for the purpose of spamming (such as bulk e-mail distribution lists) or providing support services (such as DNS) for anyone intending to conduct such activity is in violation.

So please don't get your poor provider in trouble!

[iiiiiiiiiiiiii]

i'm not sending spam -- they are individual emails (not bulk) to photo editors that comply with federal spam regulations (appropriate subject header, opt out option within message, etc).

i can avoid tracking the click-throughs, though. i didn't know how buggy and obnoxious that was!