How Gmail’s Image Caching affects Email Marketing

On December 2013, Gmail’s new security feature has changed the way images are displayed in their emails.

In the past, when opening an email, Gmail would make a request for displaying its images. Now, this images will be displayed by default because they’ll be temporarily stored in the platform.

How does this Affect Email Marketing?

Doppler tracks openings by placing a single pixel sized image in each email. An email will be considered as ‘opened’ once this image is displayed.

By leaving images turned off, users could open our emails without downloading the tracking image, making those opens invisible to Doppler. Now that Gmail displays images automatically, those previously invisible opens are now visible, making the unique openings indicator more accurate.

As for multiple opens, they will be harder to track. Once the tracking image is downloaded it won’t be downloaded again so, if you want to know whether Gmail users has opened your email more than once, we recommend you to check your CTR.