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Certain e-mail software allows for the tracking of e-mail opens and clickthroughs (i.e., when a link is followed). The University's mass e-mail distribution system, Lyris ListManager, allows for this type of tracking. The methods used for tracking are common to most mass e-mail systems.
Open tracking relies on a small, transparent image embedded in the HTML part of a message. To be counted as an open, a recipient must not only view the e-mail in HTML, but also choose to load images, if presented with that option. Because of this, the number of counted opens will always be lower than the number of actual opens.
Clickthrough tracking, or link tracking, works by taking a destination URL, e.g., http://www.umn.edu, and rewriting it so that it first directs a user through a system where their action is recorded, then redirects the user to the intended destination. A tracked link, using Lyris ListManager, might look like http://ecommunication.umn.edu/t/1/234/56789/0, even though the user will be taken to a different site.
Clickthrough tracking provides a better measure of engagement by recipients than open tracking.
As described above, when you use clickthrough tracking, the desitination URL will not match the redirect URL. For that reason, you must not link to any Web pages with the page URL displayed as text. For example, do not create links like this:
See http://www.umn.edu/ for more information.
Instead, display text in the place of the URL:
See the University of Minnesota Web site for more information.
Tracking clickthroughs by displaying URLs will be seen by many e-mail clients and spam filtering software at the server level as a potential phishing scam, and may result in your message being blocked or routed to a recipient's junk mail folder. On a larger scale, this may result in other e-mail from the University being blocked or impaired.
E-mail engagement is hard to measure, but use of Lyris for tracking the number of times your message is opened, and the links that were clicked in it, is the best solution available on campus.