Email analytics are unreliable and make me feel icky
Hey fellow creators - is anyone else unsatisfied with the current state of email analytics?
I experience two main problems:
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Email open rates are unreliable (and sometimes click rates) because some email clients block tracking pixels and/or screen emails (i.e. Apple, Gmail?). This means false negatives or false positives.
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The whole idea of "tracking" our subscribers without their consent kind of makes me uncomfortable. Especially in the age of GDPR compliance, where more and more people want to protect their privacy online (myself included).
What if their was "opt-in" email analytics where subscribers could decide if they want to be tracked or not? Instead of grabbing info, we'd only get what was volunteered. Subscribers would get their desired privacy, and we would get better analytics.
What anyone use such a service?
About the point n°2, what the relation with GDPR & privacy ?
The fact is, if you are sending an email to someone, so you have to get an optin to use this email, so I guess the user has to be ok with your privacy.
Otherwise, it's spam...
Good point. Indeed, hopefully that is the case with newsletters - that everyone on the list has opted-in to receiving them.
I am just imagining users who would want to receive emails but not want to share their activity and other more precise data like email opens and link clicks.
I know several creators who have disabled email and link tracking just because it makes them ethically uncomfortable.
Also, I'm curious: Has anyone simply turned off email tracking for their newsletter?