Hello Saleshandy Users!
We’re reaching out to inform you about an important update from Google that could impact your cold email campaigns. As you may know, Google has recently introduced a new policy that flags emails containing tracking pixels, which could affect the way you measure the success of your email outreach efforts.
Additionally, Gmail has also updated its policy concerning open tracking pixels, and this could have a significant effect on your deliverability. Gmail’s new policy aims to flag open tracking pixels as suspicious, which may trigger spam filters more frequently. As a result, emails with tracking pixels might end up in spam folders rather than reaching their intended recipients.
Google Open Tracking Policy Link: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images#supported-image-formats
Tracking Best Practices with Saleshandy
If you haven’t set up a tracking subdomain yet, we strongly recommend turning off open and click tracking to protect your domain reputation and adhere to email deliverability best practices. You can find a detailed guide on setting up a tracking subdomain in our ⚙️Setting up your Custom Tracking Domain: Step-by-step guide 🪜.
How Does This Affect Your Cold Emailing?
As a Saleshandy user, tracking opens is likely a key metric in your cold emailing strategy. This policy change might make open rates less reliable, but don’t worry—we’re here to guide you through these changes and help you adapt your approach effectively.
Potential Impacts on Your Campaigns
Inaccurate Open Rates: The new policy might lead to false positives, where an email is marked as opened when it wasn’t, or miss actual opens.
For example, in Outlook, the preview pane may trigger the tracking pixel, or Google might proxy links and inadvertently trigger open events. Mobile Gmail previews can also cause false positives.
Increased Spam Complaints: The policy could lead to more emails being marked as spam, which could hurt your sender reputation.
Lower Email Deliverability: Emails flagged by Google might have a tougher time landing in the recipient’s inbox, especially if they appear irrelevant.
Limited Tracking Data: If tracking pixels are disabled, you won’t be able to see if your emails are being opened, making it harder to measure your campaign’s success using traditional metrics.
Considerations for Open Tracking
Be aware that email tracking systems might mark an email as opened even when it hasn’t been fully read. False negatives can also occur, such as when recipients disable automatic image downloads. To ensure more accurate tracking, consider setting up a custom tracking subdomain and including a clickable link in your email.
How to Adapt Your Cold Emailing Strategy
Given these changes, you might need to adjust your approach to cold emailing. Here are a few suggestions:
Shift Focus from Open Rates: Instead of relying heavily on open rates, focus on more direct outcomes like replies, booked meetings, or other custom metrics that align with your goals. These are better indicators of your campaign’s success.
Prioritize Relevance and Personalization: Ensure your emails are highly relevant and personalized to your recipients. The more tailored your content, the less likely it is to be flagged by Google’s new policy.
Maintain Your Warm-Up Process: Keeping an active warm-up process is crucial for maintaining deliverability. This ensures your emails continue to reach inboxes, even with these new challenges. Learn more about maintaining your email warm-up process here. If you're a Saleshandy Paid Customer Trulyinbox is free to use.
Include an Unsubscribe Option: Make it easy for recipients to opt out of your emails. This reduces the chances of your emails being marked as spam and helps maintain a clean and engaged email list. Click here to learn more about Unsubscribe in Saleshandy.
Disable Open Tracking: Turn off open tracking to avoid having your emails flagged. Reply tracking can still provide valuable insights without affecting your deliverability.
Remove Images & HTML: Gmail's new policy also scrutinizes emails with images and HTML formatting. Consider switching to plain-text emails, which can improve your deliverability while maintaining compliance. Checkout 📄Plain Text vs.🌐HTML Content
Use Link Tracking Instead: Rather than relying on open tracking, utilize link tracking to monitor engagement and performance.
Prioritize Reply Rates: Shift your focus from open rates to reply rates. Aim for a solid reply rate between 5-10%, as this is a more meaningful indicator of engagement and success.
Explore Multichannel Outreach: Don’t rely solely on email. Channels like LinkedIn provide additional touchpoints that can complement your cold email campaigns.
Enhancing Your Open Rates with A/B Testing
A/B testing is a powerful tool to enhance your open rates. By sending different versions of the same email, you can analyze which version resonates better with your recipients. Use the insights gained to tweak your messaging for better engagement. For more details, refer to our A/B Testing Guide.
Troubleshooting Low Open Rates
If you’re facing low open rates, the issue might stem from deliverability problems or your domain’s reputation. Some email providers may report emails as successfully delivered but actually move them to the spam folder. If a recipient never sees your email, it won’t be opened, leading to lower open rates. To improve your domain's reputation and avoid being flagged by spam filters, review our article on 🏆Best Practices to Improve Your Email Deliverability.
Saleshandy-Specific Actions
To help you navigate these changes, we’ve prepared a few specific actions you can take within Saleshandy:
Review Your Tracking Settings: Consider pausing your use of open tracking. Ideally, it would be best to keep it off unless it's mandatory for your use case. When it's turned off, it will stop tracking the opens, meaning they will not be reflected as spam due to the new google policy.
Set Up Custom Metrics: Leverage Saleshandy’s features to set up custom outcomes that go beyond open rates. This will give you a better sense of how your campaigns are performing under the new policy. Check out How to Create Custom Prospect Outcome.
Regularly Clean Your Email List: Use Saleshandy’s list management tools to keep your email lists clean and focused on engaged recipients. This will help improve deliverability and reduce spam complaints. For more tips on list management, visit our What, Why, and How to Manage Do Not Contact List for Clients and Agencies.
Turn It Off and On Again: Remember, if you make any changes to an active sequence, you’ll need to turn it off and then back on to activate those changes.
We’re Here to Help!
At Saleshandy, your success is our top priority. We’re actively working on solutions to help you adapt to these changes and continue to achieve the best results from your cold email campaigns. We’ll keep you updated with any new developments and strategies to mitigate the impact of this policy.
If you have any questions or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team. We’re committed to helping you navigate these industry changes and ensure your campaigns remain effective.
Thank you for being a valued Saleshandy user!