The Latest in Email Tracking and Notification Technology
You just sent a prospect or client an important email? Oh Oh, what happens next?
I’m sure everybody at some time has experienced the frustration of sending an important email
and wondered if it was actually received, read, forwarded or simply deleted. Sure, there are
some rudimentary capabilities within Outlook that may slightly ease your concerns, but what if
there were flexible and easy-to-use software applications that could really give you insight into
what was occurring with that ever so critical email? What if you could determine not only if
your email was received, but you could also receive a notification alerting you at the exact
moment it was actually read? Wow, that certainly would make the timing of that follow-up call
or email easier to determine!
Believe it or not, there are a number of technology solutions currently on the market that can
provide you with this information, as well as offer a whole lot more advanced tracking
capabilities and functionality--- all of which are typically transparent and undetectable by the
email recipients. For example, some of the applications will not only notify you of the exact data
and time your email was opened, but will also provide you with the physical geographic location
and IP address of the recipient’s computer (Nigerian scammers beware!), the apparent email
address of the recipient (useful if people use free email accounts and then forward the email to
their business accounts or vice versa or use email aliases) , any URL’s contained in your email
that are clicked through (great to monitor the effectiveness of your latest email campaign), the
duration that the email was read, and if your email was forwarded or read on a different
computer (very useful to track confidential of proprietary information that might be passed onto
a competitor).
Some of the more advanced applications can also provide all of the above tracking information
on your individual email attachments to include PDF’s, Word and Excel documents. So, if you
sent a prospect a proposal as a PDF, not only would all of the above be capable, but you could
receive this information at the page level! In other words, you would be able to determine the
duration and frequency that each page was read. Hmmmm, why was this prospect spending so
much time reading the section that contained our pricing?
In addition, some applications even allow for the restriction of certain activities. For example,
you can restrict a recipient from printing or forwarded your email. Or, some allow for the
sender to specify a time duration in which the email will self-destruct within an elapsed time
after it has been read. Poof, now you see it, now you don’t!.
Most offer some type of Outlook plug-in that allows the sender to specify the “treatment” level
for each email and well as turn-off the tracking features. Since most companies charge on a per
email tracked basis (usually fractions of a penny per email), you may want to track only
important emails.

Lastly, there are typically a number of ways to receive these notifications. Web portals sites are
common, as well as the ability to receive alerts by email, Instant Message or SMS to your cell
phone.
For additional information, please contact us at:
James M. Eglin, Jr.
Partner
SysArc, Inc.
(Office): 301- 231-5252
(Toll Free) 800-699-0925
(Cell): 301-326-9146
(Web): http://www.SysArc.com
(Blog): http://NetworkSupportCompany.blogspot.com
(Twitter) http://Twitter.com/SysArc
(LinkedIn): http://www.linkedin.com/in/jameseglin