Calculating email opens
When your email assets are configured to track email opens, Oracle Eloqua matches the email open activity with a contact record to allow you to track engagement. If there is no open record in Oracle Eloqua for the user who opened the email, Oracle Eloqua uses clickthroughs to "assume an email open" for email open tracking.
Emails contain a RecipientID and a tracking pixel:
- The RecipientID enables Oracle Eloqua to associate email open activity with a contact in Oracle Eloqua.
- The tracking pixel is a 1x1 sized pixel image that is embedded in emails by default when email tracking is enabled. The tracking pixel is responsible for identifying opens.
Note: The tracking pixel is embedded at the bottom of an email by default. To request for the tracking pixel to be placed at the top of an email, please log in to My Oracle Support and create a service request.
With these two components, Oracle Eloqua is able to count the number of email opens and associate the email open activity with contacts. The email open counter is incremented when a user loads email images and/or clicks a link within the email.
Oracle Eloqua tracks and stores the following automatic engagement metrics separately from those generated by an actual email contact:
- Auto-opens and clicks by email scanning tools
- Apple email privacy auto-opens
Methods of calculating email opens
There are two methods Oracle Eloqua uses to calculate email opens:
Calculating email opens via tracking pixels
An email open is counted when a user loads images in their email because the tracking pixel image is loaded.
The tracking pixel image is an image tag that points to an endpoint on the Oracle Eloqua servers and accepts the elq parameter (unique recipient id). When the image is loaded, the endpoint records the email open against the RecipientID (which can be resolved to a contact for reporting). The HTML snippet looks similar to this:
<img src='http://s3.t.deven25.com/e/FooterImages/FooterImage1?elq=8a7dda6737164d099d416d0e24d7a9b8&siteid=3' alt="" border=0 width=1px height=1px>
If a user does not load images when viewing the email, the tracking pixel cannot be loaded, and therefore the email open cannot be detected. In this case, Oracle Eloqua uses clickthroughs to "assume an email open" for email opens. This helps ensure that email opens are counted even if image loading is disabled in the email client.
Calculating email opens via clickthroughs
Eloqua uses clickthroughs to track email open activity. There are two types of clickthroughs: website links and redirect links.
- Website links: The link click count is incremented when a link to your website within your email is clicked. The RecipientID associated with the user is used to connect the click to the known user back in Oracle Eloqua. Note that the target website must have tracking scripts enabled. See Oracle Eloqua Asynchronous Tracking Scripts for more information.
- Redirect links: The link click count is incremented before the final destination web page is loaded. There is a redirect endpoint (a point between navigating to the final browser destination at which Oracle Eloqua is pinged so we're alerted to the behavior for tracking). This redirect endpoint also uses the RecipientID to associate the activity to the known user.
If a clickthrough occurs, Oracle Eloqua determines whether or not an email open recorded for the RecipientID. If not, then an email open is also recorded along with the clickthrough to "assume an email open".
Email Clickthrough Link Breakdown report
Oracle Eloqua asynchronous tracking scripts
Knowledge Base: How to Enable the 'Tracking Pixel at Top of Email' Feature
Knowledge Base FAQ: Answering Common Email Sending Questions and Troubleshooting Common Issues