Last week, Gmail made some changes that changed the way Gmail retrieves images from email service providers’ servers. So what exactly is different, and how can you deal with it?
What exactly changes has Gmail made?
Images will now be stored in a recipient's browser cache for one day after they have downloaded the images. This will happen automatically after the recipient has received your newsletter and gives permission for the images to be displayed. This has two consequences:
No longer possible to measure multiple opens
Firstly, this change means that it is no longer possible to measure whether the recipient opens your email campaign multiple times. If a recipient opens the email again within 24 hours, the images are no longer retrieved from your email service provider server, but are displayed from the cache. Because there is no longer a signal to the server, this can no longer be registered. The unique number of opens is still registered correctly.
Secondly, dynamic images within Gmail no longer work if a recipient opens the email twice within 24 hours. With dynamic images, for example social media counters, the image on the server is replaced with a new image with the correct number of tweets in it every time a tweet is sent. This makes it possible to show the number of tweets at the time of opening in the email. However, because Gmail shows the image from the cache the second time, a new image is not retrieved from the server, but the old image is shown again.
Stripped email headers
Gmail also strips the email headers on certain parts. This makes it impossible to peru mobile phone number list measure with which device the email is opened. Gmail requests all images via proxy servers, making it appear that images are requested from Google's headquarters in California. This makes it impossible to determine the location of the recipient at the moment they open the email.
Soon, images will be automatically displayed in Gmail. Within Gmail, manually downloading images is currently checked as a default option, but Gmail has announced that these default settings will change.
Gmail-Images-Impact-Summary
How big is the impact for you?
These changes only affect the following Gmail accounts in your database: Gmail.com (desktop client) and the Gmail app (Android & iOS). The changes do not affect other Gmail accounts. The difference between the total number of opens and the unique number of opens is on average only 1.1%. The vast majority of recipients (99%) also only open a campaign once. So it only has a limited impact on your statistics, but it is important to know. Above you can see the result of this research by Movableink.
What do you think of these changes that Google is implementing? And have you already taken measures?