Tracking email

[ravemasta]

Tracking emails.

What is the best way to track emails. I am creating a mailing list script which sends out emails based on:

Name Email ID

I would like to record when emails are read,open via a script.

I was thinking about having

<IMG Src="script.php?id=###" width=0 height=0>

but this doesnt execute in outlook.

Anyone have any ideas

cheers

[planetsim]

If you mean track as in check to see if a email was read by a user. goodluck in trying its almost impossible to figure out that you have someone reading your email unless they either do something like goto your site or give you feedback on the email.

I dont know of anything that can check if its read and send it back to your site.

[jnuneznyc]

<IMG Src="script.php?id=###" width=0 height=0>

I've been pretty successful with this. It's sort of a web bug. Maybe make it's size 1x1 and make it a transparent gif. Make sure you are setting the email headers to HTML so the client will download the image.

Finally if the only issue you have is with Outlook ( The enterprise Version not Express) then set a Return-Receipt header (This can be blocked by the user. Finally write a script that will check the mail account and set a flag in a db.

[ravemasta]

Is this only a bug because it is a php script? What if I set the server to parse a certain file by php but name it logo.jpg and still output a jpeg image via this script.

Would this fool the email client into thinking it is only an image and not executing php code on the server side?

Cheers

[jnuneznyc]

correction: web bug is what many sites use to track your movement throughout the site.

I have gotten what you are doing to work just check the image size and set it to 1 x 1.