emails and tracking links

[voddie]

Hi

I wonder if someone can shed some light on my dilemma?

I have a tracking script that will track the links clicked in a html email.
eg code is

<a href=" http://www.mysite.com/tacker/out.php?http://www.another.com/">Another Link</a>

My understanding is that the link requested ie www.another.com is logged by the out.php script and submitted into a database that I can query for results (along with ip)

I am trying to get more information feedback from the email sent.

Is it possible, and if so how? to

1. Track the email address thats opened the email
2. Track other variables such as an email code so i know which email was sent.
3. How long the email was opened
   4 Whether the email was delivered
   5 Whether email was deleted but not opened

If poss could you explain in detail as to how other variables in the email can be sent back to out.php for logging.

Hope you understand what im trying to find the answers to and any assistance, reference etc would be most welcome.

Regards

Voddie

[thorpe]

i gather your the one sending the email in the first place?

it would be easy enough to add variables to the link in the email, then in the out.php file check for these variables.

assuming the link looks something like

http://blahblah/out.php?dir=www.another.com

just add more variables to the string... something like;

http://blahblah/out.php?dir=www.another.com&email=[e-mail]

now... the problems lie in the fact that you have no say in hat happens on the client. so, you might send this email to [e-mail], the best you can do is attach his email address to the link when you send it;

http://blahblah/out.php?dir=www.another.com&email=[e-mail]

if he clicks the link you will be notified, but if he also sends the email to a friend and they click the link... you will get another message saying that [e-mail] clicked the link again.

as for varifying the email was delivered... well if theve clicked the link theve gotten it??

bassically what i am saying is, yes its possible to attach more info to the link, but no, it is not possible to go after the kind of infomation your snooping after.

[voddie]

Thanks for the feedback!

So If I addded more variables to the link it can track them, cool.

So how do I write them and where exactly in the link do they appear?

My current script works with the linked page straight after the out.php ie

http://blahblah/out.php?www.another.com it doesnt have "dir="

Would this mean the script is just pulling the one variable ie www.another.com?

So maybe my original script may need amending to be able to take more than one variable ie dir=..... email=....

Am I making sense?

Voddie

[thorpe]

yeah.... your making sense. you'll need to change some of the code in the script that sends the email. this is where you add the variables. then you'll also need to change the out.php script so that it goes looking for these new variables.

lets start with the first part. can you post the code that sends the email?

[onedrum]

as for varifying the email was delivered... well if theve clicked the link theve gotten it??

... or clamav (or similar) followed the link to check if you wanted to install a virus via teh email link. In this case you would receive a false record that the mail was read.

You might be putting yourself up for people who don't like snoopers on their PC from hammering the hell out of your out.php.

I know I would. Refresh, refresh, refresh, alter the URL params, refresh, refresh. Hell, write a script to send 10,000 different emails to it! LOL

You could put the link in an HTML <img src="" tag instead and return an image, if the user has HTML email switched on by default, they wont have to clik the link.

[voddie]

Hi Thorpe

I just using a link at the moment within the html email im sending.

ie <a href="http://www.mysite.com/track/out.php?[url]http://www.another.com[/url]" target="_blank">Another
Link</a>

The script "out.php"

<?

require("shared.inc.php");

$db=mysql_connect("$dbhost","$dbuser","$dbpasswd");
mysql_select_db("$dbname",$db) or die ("Unable to select database");

function error ($error_message) {
echo $error_message."<BR>";
exit;
}

$day = date("Y-m-d"); // format the date string
$url = urldecode($QUERY_STRING);

    if ((! $url) || (! preg_match("/http:/", $url))) error ("Error: Invalid syntax, below is an example of the correct link syntax to use:<br> <A HREF=\"$track_url/out.php?[url]http://www.mysite.com/\[/url]">$track_url/out.php?[url]http://www.mysite.com/[/url]</A>");

if ($QUERY_STRING) {
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM clicks WHERE url='$url' AND day='$day'",$db);
if(mysql_num_rows($result) > 0) {
mysql_free_result($result);
$result = mysql_query("SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(time) FROM ip WHERE (url='$url' AND ipnum='$REMOTE_ADDR' AND day='$day')",$db);
if($row = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
if(($row[0]+3600) < time()) {
mysql_query("UPDATE clicks SET raw=raw+1,uni=uni+1 WHERE url='$url' AND day='$day'",$db);
mysql_query("UPDATE ip SET time=NOW() WHERE url='$url' AND ipnum='$REMOTE_ADDR' AND day='$day'",$db);
} else { // if the click is raw
mysql_query("UPDATE clicks SET raw=raw+1 WHERE url='$url' AND day='$day'",$db);
}
mysql_free_result($result);
} else { // new ip address
mysql_query("UPDATE clicks SET raw=raw+1,uni=uni+1 WHERE url='$url' AND day='$day'",$db);
mysql_query("INSERT INTO ip (url,ipnum,day) VALUES ('$url','$REMOTE_ADDR','$day')",$db);
}
} else { // if its a new day or a new url
mysql_query("INSERT INTO ip (url,ipnum,day) VALUES ('$url','$REMOTE_ADDR','$day')",$db);
mysql_query("INSERT INTO clicks (url,day,raw,uni) VALUES ('$url','$day',1,1)",$db);
}

$url="Location: ".$url;
header($url);
exit;

}
?>

"shared.inc.php" being my database connection.

Ideally I need email address that opened the email, even though they didnt click any links within the email.
I email address that clicked any link (as is now but with email address)
I also want to insert these extra variables into the database so can query results later.

Thanks in advance for any assistance with my project.

Voddie