Open and Click Tracking

Open and click tracking helps you understand whether people are seeing and engaging with your emails. It is useful, but it is not perfect. Inbox providers, privacy tools, security scanners, and link prefetching can all change what gets counted.

How Tracking Works

Bento tracks opens with a small image pixel placed in the email. When the image loads, Bento records an open.

Clicks are tracked by rewriting links through your Bento tracking domain. When someone clicks a tracked link, Bento records the click and redirects them to the final URL.

That gives you a useful view of engagement, but there are a few important limits:

• Open tracking only works when images load.
• Click tracking records link requests, not always human intent.
• Privacy and security systems can load images or check links before a person reads the email.
• Opens and clicks are best understood as trends across campaigns, segments, and inbox providers.

Why Opens Are Imperfect

Open rates are still useful for spotting broad movement, but they are the easiest metric to distort.

Apple Mail Privacy Protection

Apple Mail Privacy Protection can preload email images through Apple servers. If a subscriber uses Apple Mail with privacy protection enabled, Apple may load the tracking pixel on their behalf.

Bento can see that the pixel loaded, but it cannot always know whether the subscriber personally opened the email.

Gmail and Image Proxying

Gmail commonly proxies images. Gmail may fetch images through its own servers, cache them, and serve them back to the reader.

This does not make Gmail opens useless. It does mean device, location, and repeated open details are less precise than they used to be.

Open Pixel Limits

Opens can be missed or inflated because:

• Plain-text emails cannot reliably track opens.
• Some people block images by default.
• Some inbox previews or privacy tools load images without a real read.
• Pixel placement can affect the count.

Use open rates to spot direction, not to make high-stakes decisions about one subscriber.

Click Tracking Caveats

Clicks are usually stronger than opens because they require a link request. They can still be inflated by security tools.

Bot Clicks and Security Scanners

Security scanners may visit links before delivering an email to the inbox. This is common in business inboxes, schools, government domains, and companies with strict security policies.

Bento filters obvious bot activity where possible, but no email platform can perfectly separate every scanner from every person.

Link Prefetching

Some browsers, apps, and mailbox providers may prefetch links to speed up page loading or check link safety.

Prefetching can create clicks that happen immediately after delivery, often without a matching website session or conversion. Treat suspiciously fast clicks as a warning sign, not clear intent.

What Suspicious Clicks Look Like

Watch for:

• Clicks within seconds of delivery.
• Many links clicked at nearly the same time.
• Clicks from data centers or security vendors.
• Clicks with no matching website activity.
• High click rates without replies, signups, purchases, or page engagement.

Link Branding

Link branding lets tracked links use your domain instead of a generic tracking domain. This is better for subscriber trust, brand consistency, and deliverability.

Set up link branding before sending serious volume:

1. Go to Deliverability -> DNS Records.
2. Add the link branding DNS record.
3. Click Validate DNS Records.
4. Send a test email and confirm links redirect correctly.

Use the DNS Setup guide if you need help adding the records.

UTM Tracking

UTMs help connect email clicks to website sessions, purchases, trials, and other downstream behavior.

Bento click tracking tells you that a tracked email link was requested. UTMs help your website analytics understand where the visitor came from after the click.

Useful defaults:

• utm_source=bento
• utm_medium=email
• utm_campaign for the broadcast, sequence, or automation name
• utm_content for the specific link or CTA name

For more detail, see UTM Tracking and Ad Attribution.

Double Opt-In Links

Double opt-in confirmation links need extra care because they represent consent.

A confirmation click is stronger than an open, but security scanners can still touch links. For important consent flows, send people to a confirmation page where the final subscription action happens after the page loads or after a clear confirmation button click.

Recommended setup:

• Use a branded confirmation page on your domain.
• Keep the confirmation link specific and easy to identify.
• Filter Bento click triggers to the exact confirmation URL or a unique token.
• Record consent fields such as consented_via, consented_at, and source/form name.
• Watch for scanner patterns before treating every raw link request as final consent.

See Double Opt-in Email Setup for the full workflow.

Metrics to Trust

Use this hierarchy when diagnosing performance:

Signal	How to use it
Purchases, signups, replies, booked calls, and account activity	Best signals of real intent
Human-looking clicks and visits with matching website activity	Strong engagement signals
Opens, click-to-open rate, device, and location	Directional signals
Spam complaints, hard bounces, unsubscribes, and spam blocks	Reputation signals to watch closely

Do not panic over one weird campaign. Look for patterns across sends, segments, and inbox providers.

If opens drop while clicks, replies, and revenue stay steady, the issue may be tracking noise. If opens, clicks, and conversions all fall together, investigate content, targeting, DNS, reputation, and list quality.