How Email Open and Click Tracking Works in Vedain CRM

How Open Tracking Works

When you send an email campaign in Vedain, a tiny invisible 1×1 pixel image is automatically added to every email. This image is hosted on Vedain's servers. When the recipient opens the email, their email client requests this image — and that request is recorded as an open.

Here is what happens step by step:

1. You send a campaign from Vedain.
2. Vedain injects a tracking pixel into each email (invisible to the recipient).
3. Recipient opens the email in their inbox.
4. Their email client loads the tracking pixel.
5. Vedain records the open with a timestamp.
6. The lead/contact status updates to Opened.
7. You see the update on the Campaign Detail page and on the lead's timeline.

How Click Tracking Works

Every link you include in your email template is automatically replaced with a Vedain tracking redirect URL before sending. When the recipient clicks a link:

1. The click hits Vedain's redirect server.
2. Vedain records which link was clicked, by whom, and at what time.
3. The recipient is immediately redirected to the original destination URL.
4. The lead/contact status updates to Clicked.
5. You see the click data on the Campaign Detail page.

What the Status Badges Mean

• •Sent (grey) — Email was successfully delivered. Not yet opened.
• •Opened (blue) — The recipient opened the email. The tracking pixel fired.
• •Clicked (green) — The recipient clicked a link in the email. This also implies they opened it.
• •Bounced (red) — Email could not be delivered. Either the address is invalid (hard bounce) or the mailbox was temporarily full (soft bounce).
• •Unsubscribed (orange) — The recipient clicked the unsubscribe link.

Where to See Tracking Data

On the Campaign Detail Page

Go to Campaigns → click the campaign name → you see the stats panel at the top (total sent, opened %, clicked %) and a per-recipient table below showing each person's status.

On Individual Lead/Contact Records

Open any lead or contact → Timeline tab → find the email entry → hover over the Opened or Clicked badge to see exact timestamps. Click to expand and see which specific link was clicked.

Important Limitations of Email Tracking

Apple Mail Privacy Protection

Since iOS 15 and macOS Monterey (2021), Apple Mail pre-downloads all images in emails — including tracking pixels — before the user even opens the email. This means every email sent to an Apple Mail user will show as 'Opened' within seconds of delivery, even if the person never reads it. This inflates open rates artificially.

Corporate Email Clients That Block Images

Some corporate email clients (especially older Outlook desktop versions) block external images by default. Recipients on these clients will not register as 'Opened' even if they read the email. This deflates open rates.

Plain-Text Emails

Open tracking only works for HTML emails. If a recipient's email client displays plain text only, the tracking pixel does not load. Click tracking still works if the links are present.

What This Means in Practice

Use click rate as your primary engagement metric — it is far more reliable than open rate. A click requires a real human action that cannot be faked by privacy tools.