Understand email open and click tracking

Track email opens and clicks to understand how recipients interact with your marketing and one-to-one emails. HubSpot records these interactions to help you analyze email engagement and uses tracking data in tools such as workflows, segments, and email optimization.

In this article, learn how HubSpot tracks email activity, what affects tracking data, and how to manage tracking for different email types.

Before you get started

Before you get started with email tracking, review consent requirements, limitations, and considerations.

Email tracking consent compliance

Some countries, such as France and Italy, require that your recipients provide consent before tracking email opens and clicks. These requirements apply to any sender emailing recipients in those countries, regardless of where the sender is based. Compliance responsibility sits with the sender. Review email tracking guidelines for obtaining prior consent and consult your legal team to determine the requirements and exemptions that apply to your specific situation.

If a recipient hasn't provided consent, you can turn off open and click tracking for your account or for individual emails. The available options depend on the type of email you're sending. Learn how to turn off tracking for marketing and one-to-one emails.

Please note: features that rely on email open or click events may have incomplete data or limited functionality when tracking is turned off. Learn more about how turning off tracking affects other HubSpot features.

Please note: while HubSpot provides these features, your legal team is the best resource to give you compliance advice for your specific situation.

Limitations & considerations

• If you've turned on data privacy settings in your account, one-to-one email opens and clicks can only be tracked for contacts with an assigned legal basis for data processing. Learn more about email tracking eligibility and data privacy settings. 
• Email client settings, forwarded emails, multiple recipients, and other factors may affect whether HubSpot records or attributes an open or click event. Learn more about factors that affect email tracking data.

Manage tracking by email type

You can track opens and clicks for both marketing emails and one-to-one emails. Tracking settings and requirements depend on the type of email you send:

• Marketing emails: learn how to manage marketing email open and click tracking.
• One-to-one emails: learn how to manage tracking for one-to-one emails.

How email tracking works in HubSpot

When email tracking is turned on, HubSpot applies the following methods to track email opens and clicks:

• Email opens: HubSpot embeds an invisible one-pixel image, called a tracking pixel, in tracked emails. When the recipient opens the email, the tracking pixel loads, and the open event is recorded in HubSpot.
• Email clicks: HubSpot rewrites links in the email using tracking URLs. When a recipient clicks a tracked link, the click event is recorded in HubSpot.

Email clicks can be tracked for both marketing emails and tracked one-to-one emails. The behavior and configuration of link tracking depend on the type of email you're sending.

Marketing email clicks

When marketing click tracking is turned on, links included in the email are rewritten as tracking links. HubSpot generates unique tracking links for each recipient and email send. When a recipient clicks a tracked link, HubSpot records the click and redirects the recipient to the original destination.

If you've purchased the Brands add-on, you can manage the domain of the tracked links in your emails. Learn how to manage marketing email open and click tracking.

One-to-one email clicks

When you send a tracked one-to-one email from the CRM, a sequence, or the HubSpot Sales extension or add-in, you can track clicks on links included in the body of the email. When the recipient clicks a tracked link within the email, you can monitor the click in your activity feed, the contact's activities, and by receiving real-time notifications. 

When a link is tracked, HubSpot appends tracking information to the end of the hyperlinks included in your email. Tracked links use the following format: http://[xx].na1.hs-sales-engage[xx].com/...

When the recipient clicks a tracked link, the link temporarily redirects through a HubSpot-provided domain, [xx].na1.hs-sales-engage[xx].com, to track the click event. Then the link automatically redirects to the final URL destination (e.g., www.hubspot.com).

To use your own tracking domain for one-to-one email click tracking, connect a custom sales and service email tracking domain.

Email tracking eligibility and data privacy settings

If you've turned on data privacy settings in your HubSpot account, one-to-one emails can only be tracked for contacts with an assigned legal basis for data processing.

For example, if you send a one-to-one email to a contact with no known legal basis, the email may still be logged to the CRM, but email opens and clicks won't be recorded. The logged email will display the following message: Tracking data is not available for this email. This email is logged but not tracked.

Learn more about how data privacy impacts email tracking with the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension and Office 365 add-in.

How tracking data is used in HubSpot

HubSpot uses email open and click events to report on email engagement and support other tools that rely on engagement data. How tracking data is used depends on the type of email you send and the HubSpot tools you're using.

The following are a few examples of how tracking data can be used:

• Analyze email engagement: use open and click events to measure metrics such as open rate, click-through rate, unique opens, and unique clicks. Learn more about analyzing marketing email performance and reporting on one-to-one emails.
• Optimize marketing email sends: use open and click activity to support send time optimization, graymail suppression, and A/B testing.
• Automate processes: use email opens and clicks as criteria for workflow enrollment, branches, or subsequent actions.
• Segment and score contacts: use email open and click activity as criteria for active segments, lead scores, and deal scores.
• Update CRM engagement data: use email open and click events to update engagement properties and record activities on contact records.

Impact of turning off email tracking

If email tracking is turned off, HubSpot doesn't collect new open or click events for affected emails. Existing tracking data remains available, but features that depend on new open or click events may have incomplete data or limited functionality.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of features and tools that may be affected.

Factors that affect email tracking data

Email tracking data may not always reflect a recipient's exact behavior. Some factors can prevent HubSpot from recording an open or click, while others can affect which recipient the activity is attributed to.

Marketing and one-to-one emails

The following factors may affect tracking for both marketing and one-to-one emails:

• Bot filtering: HubSpot doesn't generate open and click events for one-to-one emails when activity is identified as non-human, such as bot activity or emails sent through forwarding addresses. You can also exclude suspected bot activity from email analytics by filtering bot activity. Learn more about bot filtering in marketing email analytics.
• Forwarded emails: it's not possible to determine whether a tracked email was forwarded to another recipient. Forwarded emails retain the original tracking pixel and tracking links. If another recipient opens or clicks a forwarded email, the activity may be attributed to the original recipient.
• Email client settings: some email clients may block HubSpot's tracking pixel, preventing email opens from being tracked. Opens may not be recorded in the following scenarios:
  • The email is composed or sent in plain text.
  • The recipient's email client doesn't automatically download images.
  • The recipient's corporate email filter removes images from incoming emails.
  • The email is clipped before the tracking pixel loads (marketing emails only). Some email providers clip content above a certain size threshold, preventing the tracking pixel from loading until the recipient expands the full email. Learn how to review and decrease the size of marketing emails.
  • The recipient has a very strict spam filter that blocks images or link tracking from loading in emails, which may filter the email as spam. 

If a recipient clicks a tracked link without loading the tracking pixel, HubSpot may infer that the recipient opened the email and record an open event.

One-to-one emails only

The following factors may affect tracking for one-to-one emails:

• Multiple recipients: when you send a tracked email to multiple recipients, including recipients in the CC or BCC fields, each recipient receives the same tracking pixel. An open notification may be generated without identifying which recipient opened the email.
• Self-opens: opening a tracked email from your sent folder may trigger a self-open notification. Learn how to block self-open notifications for the Chrome extension and Outlook desktop add-in.

Troubleshoot email open and click tracking

Review the following information if you experience unexpected open or click activity for tracked emails.

Why aren't clicks being tracked in my emails?

Only hyperlinked, non-URL text can be tracked. If link clicks are not being tracked as expected, use descriptive text instead of a URL as the hyperlink text. For example, if you're inserting a link to your website, hyperlink HubSpot website to www.hubspot.com. If you use www.hubspot.com as the hyperlink text, clicks won't be tracked, even if the URL is hyperlinked.

Clicks in one-to-one emails can't be tracked if the email is in plain text format.

Why is the open timestamp the same as the click or reply event?

Some email clients prevent HubSpot's email open tracking pixel from loading. When this happens, HubSpot can't directly record that the email was opened.

If the recipient later clicks a tracked link in the email or replies to it, HubSpot can infer that the email was opened. If the email previously had zero recorded opens, HubSpot may create one inferred open event.

The inferred open uses the same timestamp as the first click or reply because that's the first confirmed engagement HubSpot receives. This inference only occurs when an email goes from zero opens to one open and isn't repeated for subsequent clicks or replies, ensuring engagement metrics remain accurate.

Why am I not receiving open or click notifications for one-to-one emails?

If you're not receiving any open or click notifications when sending a tracked email from your email inbox, learn how to troubleshoot tracking issues with your extension:

• Troubleshoot the HubSpot Sales Chrome extension
• Troubleshoot the HubSpot Sales Outlook desktop add-in
• Troubleshoot the HubSpot Sales Office 365 add-in

To test link tracking, click the link from an email client and browser that does not have the HubSpot Sales extension installed to prevent the click notification from being suppressed. This can help you avoid notifications triggered by clicks on your own links, but this does not apply to other recipients of your email who may have HubSpot Sales installed.

Why am I getting multiple email opens for a specific one-to-one email?

If you receive more email open notifications than expected for a specific tracked email, it may indicate that the email was forwarded or that you copied and pasted a previously sent email. Because of privacy and security concerns, when an email is forwarded, HubSpot defaults to telling you that the original recipient opened the email again.

If you copied and pasted an email that you had previously sent, you also copied the original tracking pixel. The same tracking pixel would load for each recipient. It's recommended to send personalized emails, which you can create from scratch in the CRM or your mail client, or to use sales email templates.

Sometimes, a single tracking image will load multiple times because of how the recipient views their emails. For example, a user could be on a server that dynamically changes that user's IP address. If the image is loaded from multiple IP addresses, then the notifications may indicate that your emails were opened by multiple people.

Also, email clients like Outlook or Apple Mail have a preview pane as part of the inbox view. If recipients scroll over your email in their inbox, this can trigger an email open notification.

Why am I receiving one-to-one email notifications attributed to Someone?

If you send a tracked email to multiple email addresses (including CC and BCC), they all receive the same HubSpot Sales tracking image. HubSpot will still notify you of the email open, but HubSpot may not be able to determine which recipient opened the email.

If you also have data privacy settings turned on in your HubSpot account and a contact does not have a lawful basis for data processing, HubSpot Sales will track the multiple-recipient email, but the notifications will be anonymous. The Recent sales email open date, Recent sales email clicked date, and Last engagement date properties will also not be updated.

Please note: when you receive a Someone notification for an email open or click, HubSpot cannot attribute the corresponding email activity to a specific recipient, so it will not appear in any email activity reporting (e.g., a custom report).