The case against "spy pixels" in email marketing?
Recently on Twitter I've seen people come out and speak against the tracking used in email marketing which lets you know how your emails are performing. Even professionals who have spent years in email marketing are saying it's better to turn off this tracking.
Now, as far as I know, it's not like this tracking is being used to invade into the recipients' personal lives and see what they're saying, shopping, etc. If it were so then that would be a problem. But I haven't seen any scenario where that is being done.
Is this is a marketing tactic being used for Hey by Jason Fried? If so, it's going REALLY well imo.
What do you think?
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Yeah, saw DHH on a tirade about it the other day. I agree with him from a privacy perspective, but I feel like he (and Fried) miss/forget the fact that not everybody is at the same level of success as he and his company are at, and the fact that his recent stance against certain practices are coming from the top of the mountain and aren't necessarily the same ideological stance they took while building themselves to where they are at now.
Extremely reminiscent of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails "going indie" and releasing albums outside of the major record labels...... but only after he had his millions.
Personally speaking, I think using tracking pixels can help reduce the amount of unwanted emails that are going out, because if used correctly, you can use extremely low open rates as an indicator to drop the person from your list entirely. Certainly still has privacy implications, but at least has some merit when used "correctly" / to the user's benefit and not just your own (scrubbing lists is mutually beneficial though, since it can help cut your costs).
As an indie, reply rates are really low for me right now. I need tracking pixels to determine if people are reading AND ignoring my emails so I can craft something that resonates (or find a more targeted audience from my sign ups).
I agree, it's easy to say you don't want this happening when you're already successful.
I just have display images off by default. If the tiny pixel does not load they don't know ...
Here's a technical case for not doing it: there are plenty of things that can impact its accuracy, from people blocking images in their mail clients (false negatives; I do this) to overzealous mail servers prefetching them (false positives).
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