How do you know if someone delete a mail you sent?

Arc

I'm making a mass mailer for the company i work for... Just about everything works.. but thres this company that charges like $25 and they mail your doohicky for you, but they also keep track of if the mail was read/deleted/forwarded... How on earth can you find out if someone read/deleted/forwarded an email you sent them with php?

Like what would be the code to attach along with the email to have it send back to me that it was deleted/read/forwarded..

Thanks!😃

tomhath

I suppose you could have an OnLoad javascript that does something on some insecure email programs (Outlook comes to mind...).

I doubt they'd get much stats from me, since I have Outlook set up in the Secure Zone, but almost all mass mailings get filtered by my ISP before I ever see them 😃

Do they charge extra for mails that are read? I'd be suspicious...

Arc

WEll I know Outlook has a deal that sends a reciept to the sender that the mail was recieved... but i have no idea how that works with other email clients like hotmail/AOl etc.. And i have no idea how to use it with a database...

Anyone have any experience with this at all?

suntra

Also, you can send you message with text/html content... you put an image which calls a PHP script which will return an image.

Example :
<IMG SRC="http://www.myserver.com/email_confirm.php3?email=myemail%40myserver.com" WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1 ALT="" BORDER=0>

%40 = @ (encoded)

Arc

Umm what good is calling an image gunna do? What if i dont want to add an image? etc...

matbennett

If you look at the code, suntra isn't actually calling an image. A php script is being called by an image tag.

If that script simply logged the value of $email then you know who has read (well, opened at least) the email. If an IP address is logged as well, then I guess that you could track the forwards in the same way.

This is a horrible trick used by spammers. Good mail clients give you the option to hide all dynamic images, which I think should be set on by default in all mail clients. As far as I am aware, there is not a way to hide these images in Outlook / Outlook express (no MS expert though).

Arc

Ahh i see now.. that does make sense. Thanks alot.

1 question though... if you use an image source tag and it doesnt pull and image wont it show as a broken image(little white box with red x in middle)?

orionblue

Try it! The width/height =1 should make it small enough for the 'x' to not be visible.

Arc

Well hmm i thought i got it working but then it quit... gotta do some more tinkering.

Arc

Ok maybe i am doing something wrong here. The code i have in the mail send is this.

//Excerpt from code
$mail_body .= "<IMG SRC=\"http://www.blah.net/emailer/emailread.php?Email=$ResultArray[0]\" WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=1 ALT=\"\" BORDER=0>

This adds the image at the bottom of the email...the $ResultArray[0] variable is the emailaddress of the recipient... I use this in the emailread.php file to update the TimesRead field.

In the emailread.php file i have this code

<?php
Include("dbconnect.php");
//Update the users Info
$Sql="UPDATE tblEmailInfo SET EmailsRead = EmailsRead + 1 WHERE EmailAddress LIKE '$Email'";
$Result = mysql_query($Sql, $Connect);
?>

This just adds 1 to the Emails read field where the emailaddress= the $Email variable sent from the Image Tag.

Apparently this php file is never getting called? I'm not sure exactly.. I've checked all the variables and they are correct... it SHOULD work but for some reason it isn't. I am using Outlook with security setting on the lowest setting. Also using WinXP Pro if that matters.

Thanks!😃

Arc

Never mind i figured it out..whoohoo It works!! Thanks alot!