Email Tracking Mark Replacement for Accurate Read Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current email tracking systems cannot distinguish between a sender and a recipient accessing an email message using a different email user agent, leading to incorrect tracking data and user confusion.
Innovation Solution
The method involves embedding a tracking mark in an email message, sending metadata to a tracking service server, and replacing the original email message with a copy that either lacks a tracking mark or contains a different mark, allowing the server to detect when the recipient opens the email, while ensuring the sender's copy remains unchanged.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Difficulty of detecting and measuring
If a tracking mark is embedded in an email message to track when the recipient opens the email, then the ability to detect email openings is improved, but the reliability of tracking data deteriorates because the sender's different email user agent cannot be distinguished from the recipient's email user agent when both request the tracking mark
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by replacing the sender's email user agent copy of the email message with a version that has an inactive tracking mark before the recipient can open it. This prevents the sender's subsequent access from being mistakenly recorded as a recipient read, thereby maintaining tracking data reliability while preserving email opening detection capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system extracts the tracking mark from the sender's copy of the email message by replacing it with an inactive tracking mark. This separation allows the tracking functionality to remain active for the recipient while rendering it inactive for the sender, thus resolving the reliability issue without eliminating email opening detection.
2Reliability
If the tracking mark remains active in the original email message copy stored on the server, then the tracking functionality is maintained, but the sender's access to their own sent messages causes false positive tracking signals
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by making the tracking mark inactive only in the sender's copy of the email message while keeping it active in the recipient's copy. This localized modification allows the sender to access their sent messages without generating false tracking signals, while the recipient can still be tracked when they open the email.
3Device complexity
If the system assumes all tracking mark requests are from recipients, then the implementation complexity is reduced, but the accuracy of tracking information deteriorates due to inability to distinguish sender from recipient access
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by proactively replacing the tracking mark in the sender's copy before any access occurs. This eliminates the need for complex real-time analysis to distinguish sender from recipient requests, maintaining simple system implementation while achieving accurate tracking by preventing false positives in advance.
Data Source
AI summary
The method comprises embedding, by an application (11), a first tracking mark in an email message (50) to be send to a recipient device (20) via a second server (200), and sending metadata (40) about the email message (50) to a first server (100); storing, by the second server (200), a first copy of the email message (51) and forwarding the email message (50) to said recipient device (20); and detecting when the recipient device (20) opens the email message (50) by the recipient device (20) requesting the embedded first tracking mark to said first server (100), wherein before or after said detecting being performed, said first copy of the email message (51) is replaced with a second copy of the email message (52) including no tracking mark, having embedded therein a second tracking mark or having embedded therein an inactive mark instead of the first tracking mark.