Productivity Portfolio

Towards the end of last year, a subscriber contacted me about ways to track email. He was upset as he thought he lost a recruiting job because his email wasn't read. In fact, he wasn't even sure his email made it to the client. He was hoping there was some tool that could assure him his email was read.

We were already familiar with email applications such as Microsoft Outlook that have read receipt, but there are drawbacks to this feature. For starters, the recipients mail server and application have to use this feature. Second, many people turn off the receipt feature as they find it annoying.

We also found several services that allow you to add a code to the address line for tracking purposes. These services work on a monthly subscription basis and offer more details. As example, they could tell you if the email was forwarded, printed, saved and roughly where the reader was when they opened the email. Some of these services also make it transparent to the reader that the email is being tracked. We opted not to review these services, as we believed they were too invasive.

Instead, we chose the middle ground and tested MSGTAG. What MSGTAG does is simply tell you when the email was opened. The program doesn't care whether the user forwarded the email, read it three times and so on. The program automatically tracks whether an email is opened through the use of a small image. If you were to look at the message source, you would see a line containing a unique image link such as the following.

<img src="http://img.msgtag.com/nEivap/vDxb/qpsh1sBx/Epknu/ds/sr/hvzkq.gif">

We should point out that the recipient doesn't see this line of code. Instead, they see footer with the following:

When the recipient opens their email, the image is retrieved from the MSGTAG server. MSGTAG then records the time and informs the sender. Its important to note that MSGTAG doesn't see your email, nor does your email go through their servers.

Once the email is opened, the sender gets a notification message similar to this:

A mail message that you have sent has been opened by its recipient.

Like most of these services, MSGTAG has differing plans and options. The examples displayed above belong to the free version. In addition, the company offers a Plus and Status service. These fee-based services provide other features such as custom messages, tech support, contact preferences, and a dashboard. The contact preferences are a nice feature that allows you define who should or shouldn't get tracked. As example, I could tell MSGTAG to exclude everyone at a specific domain or vice versa.

We've been testing the Status service since the beginning of the year and are pleasantly surprised. One of the features the Status service offers is a custom message. For testing purposes, we decided to change our message to:

This email is using the features of MSGTAG. This is one of the services we're testing for an upcoming newsletter article on email delivery verification services and compatibility. The service is being used on outbound messages so we can test as many email programs (Outlook, MSN, AOL, Eudora, etc) as possible. If you prefer not to have your email included or have any concerns, let me know.

I don't have an exact count of how many emails had that footer, but its a large number. What I can tell you is that no one complained. I expected some of my friends who are privacy advocates to jump on my case.

I think part of the reason no one complained is we all have issues with email. I used to take it for granted that if I sent an email, it was received. I can't do that between problems with ISPs, spam filters and so on. And even though my email may make its way to someones mailbox, that doesn't mean it was read. From that standpoint, MSGTAG gives me a better idea.

The service isn't perfect, but I suspect all these services have drawbacks. Specifically, there are times when someone has read your email, but MSGTAG doesn't show this. The reason is usually because the recipient is filtering HTML in some way. This could be because their email client displays email as text only. Or, it could be because the recipient is using a program that suppresses images and other HTML content. A good example of this is Outlook 2003.

In my testing, I found it most beneficial with dealing with support personnel from software companies. As you might gather, I send many emails to tech support. Its been interesting and often revealing as to when support people pick up email. One of the features of the Status plan is a nice dashboard. Using the dashboard, I could quickly find out which emails needed follow up.

If you're looking for that extra assurance your message has been read, I think you should give MSGTAG a try. Among the three versions, I'm sure there is one that suits your needs.

Notes: Before installing the software make a note of your email serving settings. Specifically, MSGTAG will change your outgoing mail server to localhost. If you decide you don't like the program, you'll need to revert back to the previous mail server name. Also, the service doesn't work with Outlook on an Exchange server.

URL: www.msgtag.com
Cost: Free - $59 depending on plan