http://www.messaging360.net/index.htmlHot News!enMike ChanCopyright 20132013-12-24T00:08:40+08:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Tue, 24 Dec 2013 00:14:11 +0800Mike ChanBlog2013-12-24T00:08:40+08:00http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/9d6250963220441ec50edc8f91b7cad4-7.html#unique-entry-id-7http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/9d6250963220441ec50edc8f91b7cad4-7.html#unique-entry-id-7Gmail (Google) recently announced that they will start caching images sent to their users in an effort to increase privacy and the speed at which they can open/view their email. Unfortunately, this might have repercussions for us with regard to image tracking.

What is image tracking?
Normal open tracking happens when a user opens an email and loads a tracking image inserted by Messaging360 into every email. Each email address is given a unique tracking URL so that we know who loaded the image. Each time a user opens the email, the image is reloaded from the Messaging360 image library.

What does this mean?
With Gmail now caching these images, it will affect the open rates you see for the Gmail users on your list. Depending what portion that represents, this recent change could be significant. The Google cache also hides the source IP address of the reader. That address can be used to determine the location of the reader. Gmail users now all appear to reside in the same place (Google datacenters).
The good news with all this is Gmail has also decided to enable images again by default (for senders with a good reputation). Users will no longer have to click the “display images below” button to actually see the pictures. Having images enabled by default should make marketers happy as it will make the metric behind opens truly representative of users who viewed the message. When someone clicks a link, Messaging360 also tracks this as an open, which should help minimize the impact of this recent change.

Why are we posting about it?
We just wanted to keep you informed and let you know that we are aware of this change. For now, information we have is that multiple opens and detailed information of this kind will no longer be detected as opens are seen to take place from Google Data centers, and subsequent opens will load the image from Google’s servers. This might be more critical for some, but in our opinion the benefit of having images enabled by default outweighs the lost ability to track this data.
This year alone Google has had keeping everyone on their toes! As always, our Dev team will be monitoring to see if anything else changes. For now, consider this an early Holiday gift from Google!]]>Mike ChanBlog2013-07-29T23:40:01+08:00http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/9999fede547a149e2f8b528284d1334c-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/9999fede547a149e2f8b528284d1334c-6.html#unique-entry-id-6As many of you will have read, Yahoo is pushing an aggressive campaign of address retirement and reuse in an attempt to revitalize its email platform. There's been a lot of consternation about this process and information has been leaking out slowly, leading to a lot of confusion.]]>Mike ChanBlog2013-07-12T00:25:10+08:00http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/20fbcec6bd14c7d46a07b9d4f35fb8c7-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/20fbcec6bd14c7d46a07b9d4f35fb8c7-5.html#unique-entry-id-5Back A new tool from MIT mines your personal data to visualise personal connections. Try it - then realise that your iPhone and any email client can actually see a whole lot more.
]]>Mike ChanBlog2013-07-02T10:30:31+08:00http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/d3c94cab994165589c95b221a41bf763-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/d3c94cab994165589c95b221a41bf763-4.html#unique-entry-id-4
Back in January, many email marketers said increasing their lists was their top goal for 2013. Well, spring is here. Is your mailing list growing as fast as your flowers and lawn? If not, it's time to execute a new plan.
Many marketers have email addresses only for 30% or less of their customer and prospect lists. They're tempted to revert to their direct-mail experience and reach for a quick fix like email append ("e-append") and list rental/purchase.
But in today's engagement-based inbox placement world, this "quick fix" approach can give you more headaches than new sales.
If you seek quantity over quality in list growth, you're practically inviting the ISPs either to block your entire opt-in mailing list or route everything to your recipients' bulk folders, where they'll languish in obscurity until the ISPs dump them automatically.
So, what should be in your email list growth plan? Below are five tried-and-true methods to ignite your email list growth, in a safe, permission-based way.]]>Mike ChanBlog2013-06-28T14:52:37+08:00http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/f71addf2a35f165b5dfee17f5c2a78be-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/f71addf2a35f165b5dfee17f5c2a78be-3.html#unique-entry-id-3
A new report found that iPad users spend a large portion of their time sending and receiving emails using the native Mail client. In light of that study, we found five ways to make your iPad email faster and more productive.

This article originally published at TabTimes here]]>Mike ChanBlog2013-06-27T16:05:37+08:00http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/3111aa67d262a8b4349bcd5e6c8d869f-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.messaging360.net/blog/files/3111aa67d262a8b4349bcd5e6c8d869f-1.html#unique-entry-id-1
Most brands have a "pretty decent" email marketing program, but could it be better? Take a look at these 10 things to try and improve your engagement.

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