How to Use Read Receipt in Outlook

Yous sent an important electronic mail and are waiting for a reply. Y'all checked your inbox a couple of times, and it's empty. A few days passed, and you're wondering whether your electronic mail was lost, got into the junk folder, or just was ignored.

Should y'all send a new email now and change the subject field line to go noticed? Or information technology's better to write a follow-up asking whether the person had an opportunity to check your terminal email?

Fortunately, at that place are 2 piece of cake-to-implement solutions that tin help you to know whether your email has been opened and read:

1. Asking read receipts.
2. Use e-mail tracking tools.

In this guide, we'll hash out how these solutions work and how y'all can utilize them. We will discover some of the pros and cons of using read receipt requests and email tracking tools. After reading this guide, we are sure that you'll never accept to inquire yourself again how to know if someone read your electronic mail.

one. Request a read receipt
• The pros and cons of read receipts
• How to request a read receipt in Gmail
• How to request a read receipt in Outlook
ii. Use email tracking tools
• How electronic mail tracking tools piece of work
• The pros and cons of email tracking tools
• How to track e-mail opens with MailTracker

i. Request a read receipt

A read receipt, sometimes called a return receipt, is a notification confirming that the recipient received and opened your e-mail.

Nigh popular electronic mail providers such as Gmail and Outlook offer the option to asking a read receipt when you lot send an email.

The pros and cons of this method

Request a read receipt method is piece of cake to implement. Yet, information technology doesn't work for all circumstances.

Considering that recipients need to confirm that they received an electronic mail, it's catchy to employ this method while doing cold outreach.

Completely cold prospects or people who don't know you well might not be interested in letting you know whether they read your email or not.

Besides that, in most electronic mail platforms, a recipient can opt-out of sending a read receipt, so in that location's no guarantee that you'll get a receipt even though you requested information technology.

Asking permission with a pop-up might not be well perceived, only this method is more privacy-friendly since you ask consent for the tracking.

Besides that, this method may be the right solution for sending urgent messages to go a quick reaction from the recipient. This way y'all explicitly ask to provide feedback, highlighting the importance of such an electronic mail. For case:

• When you lot send a time-sensitive proposal to your prospects or clients, y'all want to make sure that they read your email before the offer expires.
• When yous schedule an emergency meeting with your team, and want to know who has opened your email so that y'all can telephone call those who missed it.

If you determine to asking a read receipt from the recipients, make sure the situation is advisable and urgent.

A quick summary of requesting read receipts:

How to asking a read receipt in Gmail

In the free version of Gmail (accounts that end in @gmail.com), you lot can't request a read receipt. All the same, this feature is bachelor for Google Workspace users (formerly G Suite).

If y'all're a Google Workspace subscriber, you can plough on read receipt requests via the Admin Panel.

From the Admin console Home folio, go to Apps → Google Workspace → Gmail → User Settings. In the Email Read Receipts, specify the senders your users can render receipts to. At the lesser, click Save.

Note: Only account administrators tin enable the read receipts from the Google Workspace account.

In one case the Read Receipt capability is activated, create an email y'all want to send. Then click the ellipsis in the lower right-hand corner to brandish a pop-up menu.

Click the Request read receipt option from the pop-upward menu and send your e-mail. The recipients will exist prompted to send a read receipt when they open your e-mail.

From your side, you will receive a similar message below your e-mail letting you know when it was opened:

How to asking a read receipt in Outlook

Outlook makes requesting a read receipt super uncomplicated. You don't need to set it up in advance—this feature is bachelor for all Outlook users by default.

When you fix to transport your e-mail, click on the email icon, and you'll see two options:

1. Asking a Delivery Receipt (y'all'll be notified once your electronic mail has been delivered).
2. Request a Read Receipt (you lot'll be notified once your e-mail has been read if your recipient responds Yes to the prompt on the pop-up)

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Email tracking tools also assist tracking electronic mail opens, but they're more but read receipt requests. About electronic mail tracking tools can show who reads and clicks your emails, how many times, and when.

How email tracking tools piece of work

Email tracking tools add together an invisible image of 1 pixel inside the emails. The image is loaded when the recipient opens an email, assuasive the sender to know when the email is opened.

Other information can be collected when the pixel is loaded, such as the browser or device used or the user's location.

The pros and cons of email tracking tools

If you lot employ electronic mail tracking tools to know if someone read your e-mail, recipients are non notified whether or not you track interactions with the email.

This is probably one of the most meaning benefits of email tracking tools in comparison to read receipts. You can send and track common cold emails to amend your campaigns' operation. At the same time, you lot won't bother your recipients with additional read request pop-ups (which could exist annoying in similar situations).

Too that, email tracking tools can provide you with context and valuable insights about your emails' interactions. You can apply these insights to strengthen your outreach by, for example, prioritizing follow-ups to those who opened your emails multiple times during the day or week.

You can besides transport more targeted follow-ups when you know exactly how your prospects interacted with emails. For example, it doesn't make sense to send a follow-upward to someone who hasn't had an opportunity to read your initial email.

At the same time, there is a downside of using email tracking tools. In some cases, your emails may be read, just email tracking tools will not notify you about it. There are two mutual reasons why this could happen:

1. Some email clients might block the images in emails from being downloaded or displayed. Since the tracking works by calculation an invisible image to the emails, information technology disables the tracking. Most email clients permit users to ascertain this behavior in their settings, but information technology's usually non set by default.
   
2. Some additional browser extensions or software products can also block the loading of the tracking pixel.

A quick summary of using email tracking tools:

How to track electronic mail opens with MailTracker

In that location are many tools that allow the tracking of email opens, both gratis and paid.

At Hunter, nosotros've built a simple and gratuitous electronic mail tracking extension called MailTracker, which allows y'all to know when recipients open your emails.

To kickoff tracking all of the emails sent from your Gmail account, add MailTracker to Chrome by clicking the "Add to Chrome" button:

And then sign in with Google to identify your Gmail account:

Once the MailTracker is installed, y'all can create and send your first electronic mail. You'll be able to see information about your email opens in real-time from two different places:

one. In the list of threads with checkmark icons you tin see which emails have been read or not.

2. In the conversation with the consummate history of the email openings and the details.

You can e'er disable or activate tracking from the composition window in your Gmail.

It's worth mentioning that MailTracker doesn't read or store your emails. To part, MailTracker simply needs to store identification numbers for the tracked emails. Unlike many other tools, MailTracker doesn't crave permission to read and manage your emails in Gmail.

Note: If you demand to send and rails emails in bulk, y'all can use Hunter Campaigns—our free tool for cold outreach. You lot tin send fully personalized bulk emails on autopilot and e'er know what happens to your emails after yous click "Send."

Wrap upward

When yous need to know whether your email was opened or non, you tin can use one of the 2 methods described in the guide: asking a read receipt or use email tracking tools.

If you don't desire to install any browser extensions, you can employ read receipt requests. In this case, your recipients will ever exist notified with pop-ups nigh electronic mail tracking. Nosotros recommend using this method for only urgent emails sent to your team or those who you know well.

For the cold outreach, email tracking software would be the all-time option. You lot don't notify recipients about tracking and bother them with extra follow-ups. Yous also get more insights and additional information about interactions with your emails, and then y'all can use it to strengthen your outreach efforts.

Have questions or feedback? Don't hesitate to ping me on Twitter or at irina@hunter.io.

How to Use Read Receipt in Outlook

Source: https://hunter.io/blog/how-to-know-if-someone-read-your-email/