Google Did NOT Kill 'Open Tracking'

In recent days, there’s been a spike in claims suggesting that Google has 'killed' open tracking by flagging tracking pixels as spam. Let's set the record straight: This isn't true❌

Here’s what’s really happening

• Google has no specific policy (or policy change) regarding Email Opens, aside that it does not track this metric and does not see third-party email open metrics as an accurate indicator of deliverability or SPAM classification issues (October 2023 Updates, see here).
• Google's Spam Detection Algorithms are always evolving - for emails suspected as SPAM (for multiple possible reasons) - tracking pixels might produce additional messages such as the ones being shared over LinkedIn:

• Understanding the nuances is Important:
  • Email Open Tracking Works by adding a hidden image (usually, a 1x1 pixel transparent image) that ideally loads when a person views the email and thus provide the email sending mechanism a way to "understand" an email has been read.
  • For Email Service Providers and some email clients, the existence of such image might be an indicator that an email is marketing in nature (as most marketing emails, sending from popular email-campaign management and marketing-automation software, will include it).
  • Unsolicited Marketing Email is a big no-no, and is often classified as SPAM. Consider the above two bullets - and see how your email sending behavior will directly affect the way your emails will be treated - with or without email open tracking.
  • Email Open Tracking reliability IS dead - and has been for a long time. As the tracking of email opens depends on the loading of the hidden image in the email, email clients or ESPs that pre-fetch images (loads them before the user opened the email) or proxy them - might skew the email opening rate metrics.

So What Should We do?

• Disabling Email Open Tracking is currently not necessary for Marketing Automation Platforms, if, as they should - all of your recipients gave their clear consent to receive marketing material from you. MAPs usually have the ability to ignore some non-human opens (remove "bot traffic") and provide non-accurate email opening results, which might be useful to detect abnormalities but are not reliable as a performance metric.
  
• For Sales Outreach using Sales Engagement tools, where email sending practices vary greatly - I would recommend considering removing email tracking If the platform allows it.
  
• In either case - Email Open Rates should not be a performance metric you should measure against. Email Replies and Click Tracking are more reliable, and more impactful. Email Click tracking has it issues as well, in terms of radiality - but it's still better than Open Rates.

Additional Read
I highly recommend the posts by SpamResource, Bobby Jimenez and WordToTheWise.

If you have any question regarding email deliverability and best practices, ping me directly.