Open & Link Tracking (REST only)

Presentation

Open Tracking allows Customer to determine the opening rate of emails, while Link Tracking enables Customer to track the opening rate of links contained in emails. The respective email body and/or the link will be modified so that the messages can be analyzed. To reduce the potential of as spam classification, Retarus recommends the purchase of the CNAME option, which allows Customer to use one of their own (sub)domains. In this case, the Customer associates an A Record of the respective (sub)domain with a Retarus server address.

Open and Link Tracking tracking points (push notification or into myEAS Live Search) work up to 10 days after sending the email. After this period of time, you won’t be able to receive any more information about how many times recipients opened your emails or clicked on the link in your emails.

How it works

Open Tracking

When a JobRequest is requesting to enable the Open Tracking feature, Transactional Email generates an image and a unique URL during the processing and before sending the message. This image is then included into the email body in the form of a single pixel. When the email is delivered and opened, the image is loaded, and Transactional Email service then gets this request. Thanks to the image unique URL, Transactional Email is then able to generate a Tracking Point to let you know that the email has been opened.

Some email clients disable by default the possibility to display image(s) from an email. End-recipients must allow uploading pictures to make the Open Tracking feature working.

The image unique URL is generated into the datacenter where the JobRequest has been processed.

This unique URL includes 2 parameters:

the JSON Web token, marked as (t) into the below example
the encrypted payload information, marked as (d) into the below example

Example

https://track-mail-de2.transactional-mail-d.com/v1/img?t=eyJraWQiOiJ2MSIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCIsImFsZyI6IkhTMjU2In0.eyJzdWIiOiJtNGEyLm90IiwidmVyIjoxLCJkc3QiOiJodHRwOi8vaHR0cC10by1rYWZrYS5tNGEubXVjcmUxLnJldGxv[…]&d=eyJhbGciOiJBMTI4S1ciLCJ6aXAiOiJERUYiLCJraWQiOiJ2MSIsImVuYyI6IkExMjhDQkMtSFMyNTYifQ.WU0SaYcWnASvOcKiYkufqlgdM54yeCZYv4MPI98zAn-UlfodYLHfJw.RmPFHeJSL4O8OdyFyzHC-g.FTROstUTstg-cDkZdQ13oy74DKMaYAMw2J7vXriu[…]

JSON Web token

This parameter has 2 purposes:

Set an expiration date to only track information for a specific period of time.
Apply a digital signature to validate that the token is trustworthy and has not been tampered with.

A JSON Web token can be read thanks to a JWT decoder like that one.

Encrypted payload information

The encrypted data contains all the payload information that are mandatory for Transactional Email to generate the Tracking Points when the email is opened:

This payload information is generated during the processing of the email;
No further data are collected when the email is opened (therefore the unique URL loaded);
The only information we collect is the number of times the image has been loaded;

Link Tracking

Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) automatically analyze hyperlinks in an email body before delivering the message to the recipient’s inbox. This may trigger the Link Tracking feature multiple times.