More than 40% of emails are tracked—and for good reason. Tracking your sent messages is an excellent way to enhance your email marketing campaigns.
With email tracking, you no longer need to guess where follow-ups are necessary or who is reading your email campaigns. You have this data available at your fingertips.
Tracking emails lets you learn more about your recipients, which makes your marketing efforts more efficient. The more you know about your prospects, the better you can tailor your email outreach to them.
In this article, we’ll discuss the top email tracking tools you can try during your next campaign.
The Advantages of Using an Email Tracker
There are several good reasons to use an email tracker for your outreach. Let’s look at a few:
✅ Know when to connect with your customers
If you don’t know who is reading your emails, your team won’t know which follow-up actions to take with the recipient.
An email tracking system will typically let you know if someone has read your email, which gives you an idea of where they are in your sales funnel.
For example, if a recipient hasn’t opened your email, your sales team can tailor their call accordingly. On the other hand, if they’ve been regularly reading your emails, your staff may approach them as promising leads.
If you know when your prospects have read an email, you have a clear idea of what communication needs to take place for them to convert into paying customers. Without an email tracker, you wouldn’t know where a prospect is in your buyer journey.
✅ Find out the right time to send emails
The average person receives over 120 emails each day. So how do you stand out from the crowd and get people to open yours?
You can do this by pinpointing the optimal time to send your emails, increasing the chances of them being opened.
Most email trackers will notify you when a recipient opens your email. If you see that most of your recipients open emails around 10 a.m., you know that this is a good time to send out your marketing messages.
✅ Improve your email marketing content
Many email trackers provide data about how much time a recipient spends reading your email. This information lets you know whether the content you’re providing in your emails is working.
For example, if recipients aren’t spending much time reading your emails, it’s an opportunity to change your strategy and try other types of content.
An excellent way to create eye-catching content for your marketing emails is to use the Hyperise editor. With our tool, you can hyper-personalize your emails so that you can enjoy higher open and click-through rates.
The Disadvantages of Using an Email Tracker
Although there are many good reasons to use a free email tracker, there are also some downsides to consider.
❌ Privacy concerns
Tracking the emails you send out means that when recipients open an email or click links in your content, they are monitored by the tracker you choose.
This approach may raise privacy concerns among recipients and potentially breach their trust, especially if you fail to disclose that their email interactions are monitored.
❌ Accuracy issues
Email trackers aren’t completely accurate. This is because the email client—like Outlook—or other security tools may block the email tracker from monitoring the message you sent. This could result in inaccurate data regarding your open rates and overall engagement.
❌ Spam filters
Tracked emails contain something called a pixel, which is a tiny image embedded in the message. This is how trackers determine if an email has been opened.
In some cases, these pixels trigger spam filters, which can cause your email to be directed to your recipient’s spam folder.
The 9 Best Free Email Trackers for Gmail
Now that you know more about the pros and cons of using a free email tracking tool, let’s discuss the best ones currently available.
➡️ MySignature Gmail Tracker
The MySignature tracker for Gmail offers unlimited tracking of email opens and clicks. This is a great way to monitor how your recipients respond to your marketing messages.
The tool also includes a link-tracking feature so that you can get information on how often and when your email links have been clicked. You’ll also know which links have been clicked on if your emails contain multiple links.
The main advantage of MySignature lies in its dual functionality: it offers email signatures alongside tracking for opens and clicks, eliminating the need for separate tools for each task.
You can install the MySignature extension to activate signatures and their email tracking feature. Simply click ‘compose’ to see your signature and send tracked emails. Tracking icons appear in the sent email folder and threads.
➡️ MailTracker by Hunter
MailTracker by Hunter is a Chrome extension that you can install. Although Hunter is an email verification and lookup tool, it can also track emails in Gmail.
The main advantage of using this tracker is that it has unlimited email tracking for free, and there is no need to upgrade to a pro version.
It is a more basic tool as it can track opens, including threads. However, you can’t use MailTracker by Hunter for other tracking features, like getting a notification when an email is opened.
➡️ EmailAnalytics
Although EmailAnlytics is designed to boost your team’s productivity by tracking their emails, it can still be used to track your marketing campaigns.
EmailAnalytics stands out among the listed tools by offering comprehensive data to enhance your email marketing campaigns.
You’ll get data like typical response times, the number of emails sent, and when you receive the most emails.
➡️ Saleshandy
Saleshandy is designed to help teams make follow-ups quickly and close sales more effectively.
The tool gives you instant desktop notifications every time your recipients open or click an email.
It has additional features like attachment tracking, email scheduling, and automated follow-ups. You can also create email templates and save them for later use.
Saleshandy sets itself apart from many free mail trackers by allowing you to track multiple email inboxes from a single account and effortlessly switch between Gmail accounts within the tracker.
➡️ Streak
If you’re looking for an email tracking program that can work as customer relationship management (CRM) software and an email tracker, then Streak might be what you’re looking for.
Streak is free for life on the starter plan. But there are also paid plans where you can get more data on your email campaigns.
With Streak, you can track emails, craft templates, get private pipelines, core CRM, and merge emails. You can also track read emails in both the paid and free versions. This tool can be easily added to Chrome as an extension.
➡️ Mailtrack
Mailtrack is another reliable free email tracker. Perhaps its most useful feature is that you get real-time notifications each time an email is opened or a link is clicked.
Additionally, if you add attachments as Google Drive links, Mailtrack can track these links, too.
Upgrading to a paid package gives you additional features like daily analytics reports and unlimited campaigns.
➡️ Gmelius
Gmelius helps you understand your recipients by evaluating their engagement and location. It can also monitor the individuals in BCC and CC in an email.
The tool allows you to nurture your customers based on their activities at specific times.
Using their paid plan, you can schedule your emails on a calendar, save email templates, and create to-do lists with Gmeluis’s help.
➡️ Snov.io
Another email tracker that shows if an email is opened is Snov.io. It sends you a browser notification when any recipient clicks on a link or opens an email you’ve sent. It’s also free to use.
It has a nifty send later function that helps you send scheduled emails. You can also switch from one Gmail account to another with ease.
➡️ Mailalert
Some free email tracking software uses a stamp or signature that advertises the tool or tells the reader that the email is tracked. Mailalert, on the other hand, tracks emails for free without any ‘sent with’ branding.
Besides tracking emails, Mailalert offers click tracking and real-time notifications.
It provides unlimited tracking and seamless integration with Gmail, and you don’t have to register to use this Chrome extension.
➡️ Vocus.io
Aside from being able to track email opens and link clicks, Vocus.io also sends you reminders when it’s time to follow up on an email. This feature can help to improve your outreach efforts.
Vocus.io allows you to schedule emails, which helps automate your marketing activities and saves you time.
The tool also offers campaign features that allow you to send a large amount of emails and track each individual recipient.
How to Choose the Right Email Tracking Tool for Your Business
Now that you know what some of the best free email trackers for Gmail are, let’s look at how you can decide which one is best for your business.
✔️ Define your objectives
Before choosing an email tracking tool, you need to clearly define what you want to achieve with it. Is it improving open rates, enhancing click-through rates, or understanding the best time to send emails?
Knowing your objectives will help you choose a tool to support your email outreach goals.
✔️ Consider privacy and compliance
As mentioned earlier, privacy is a significant concern when it comes to email tracking. You’ll want to choose an email tracking tool that takes privacy seriously.
The tool should prioritize privacy by not accessing your emails or storing recipients’ personal data. Choose a mail tracker that employs secure practices to safeguard data.
You should also look for tools that comply with privacy regulations in your area so that your business remains compliant with local regulations.
✔️ Consider your budget
If you don’t have a big budget for an email tracking tool, the options outlined above are ideal, as they’re mostly free to use.
However, often, the best features can only be unlocked if you subscribe to the tool. Email tracking tools typically don’t cost much, so they may be a worthwhile investment for your business.
Research and evaluate the pricing structures of the tools you’re interested in to see if they will fit your budget and suit your needs.
✔️ Check for integrations
If you’ll be using email tracking software, you’ll want it to work in harmony with your other systems and tools. Many email trackers offer integrations with various other platforms.
Ensure that the tracker you choose is compatible with the software you currently use in your email outreach efforts to get the most out of the tool.
✔️ Test the tool
Many email tracking tools offer a free trial before signing up for a paid plan. It’s a good idea to use this free trial to get a feel for the tool and ensure it’s the best fit for your needs.
A free trial also helps you determine how easy the tool is for your team to use, and you’ll typically be able to test how it integrates with your other systems.
Take Your Email Outreach to the Next Level
Now that you’ve chosen a free email tracker for Gmail, you can start tracking your marketing campaigns and measuring your success.
If you want to take your email outreach efforts to the next level, you can use personalization. In fact, personalized emails get much higher open and click-through rates than those that don’t use this tactic.
Hyperise is your all-in-one email personalization tool to create truly eye-catching messages. Using our editor, you can personalize text, images, GIFs, videos, and calls to action (CTAs) in your emails.
Visit our website to learn more about the Hyperise toolkit and how our software can help double your outreach engagement.