Engagement Tracking
Track email opens and link clicks to measure campaign performance, with optional custom tracking domains.
What Tracking Measures
Kit records loads of a tracking pixel and visits through message links. These events can help assess a campaign, but do not prove that a person read the email or clicked the link.
Tracking is off by default. You can enable opens and clicks independently in campaign settings.
How It Works
When you enable tracking on a campaign, Kit converts outgoing emails from plain text to HTML:
| Tracking Type | Mechanism | What It Detects |
|---|---|---|
| Open tracking | Embeds a 1x1 invisible pixel | When a recipient’s email client loads images |
| Click tracking | Rewrites links through a redirect | A visit through a message link, including an automated visit |
Kit generates simple HTML with paragraphs and basic formatting. Its appearance depends on the email client.
Both tracking types are independent — you can enable one without the other.
Enabling Tracking
- Open a campaign and click Edit
- Scroll to the Engagement tracking section
- Check Track email opens, Track link clicks, or both
- Save the campaign
Changes apply to future messages only. Already-sent emails are not affected.
The campaign show page displays a tracking summary in the configuration section showing which types are active.
Accuracy Limitations
Open tracking has known reliability issues:
| Factor | Impact |
|---|---|
| Apple Mail Privacy Protection | With protection enabled, Apple downloads remote content in the background whether or not the recipient opens the message. Counts can increase without recipient activity. |
| Gmail image proxy | Gmail caches and serves images through its own proxy. First open is detected, but the user’s IP is Google’s, not the recipient’s. |
| Image blocking | Some corporate email clients block images by default. Opens go undetected until the recipient manually loads images. |
| Privacy extensions | Browser-based email clients with tracking blockers suppress pixel loading entirely. |
Clicks do not depend on image loading, but security scanners can also open links. Kit counts requests through the redirect; it does not verify that a person made them.
Treat both as approximate signals. See Apple’s explanation of background content loading and Microsoft’s documentation of pre-delivery link scanning.
Reading Campaign Stats
When tracking is enabled and at least one message has been sent, the campaign show page displays an engagement row with up to three cards:
- Open rate — Percentage of sent messages opened at least once (only shown when open tracking is enabled)
- Click rate — Percentage of sent messages with at least one click (only shown when click tracking is enabled)
- Reply rate — Percentage of sent messages that received a reply (always shown)
Sub-text shows absolute numbers (e.g., “12 of 45 opened”) for context when sample sizes are small.
If tracking is active but no engagement has been recorded yet, a hint explains that data may take 24-48 hours to appear.
Reading Per-Message Engagement
On the messages list, sent messages with engagement show small icons next to the status badge:
- Eye icon (violet) — Message was opened. Hover for the count (“Opened 3 times”).
- Link icon (sky blue) — A link was clicked. Hover for the count.
On the message detail page, an Engagement card in the sidebar shows:
- Opens and clicks — Total counts with color-coded numbers
- First opened / First clicked — Timestamps showing when the prospect first engaged
- Event timeline — The 10 most recent events with type, clicked URL (for clicks), and relative timestamp. If there are more than 10 events, a note shows the total count.
The engagement card appears for any sent message where tracking was enabled on the campaign, even if zero events have been recorded (showing “Tracking is active” as an empty state).
Custom Tracking Domains
By default, tracking pixel and redirect URLs use your Kit account’s domain. A custom tracking domain — one that matches your sending domain — can improve deliverability by making these URLs appear first-party.
The self-serve domain setup under Account Settings > Custom Domains currently covers the Admin Dashboard, Career Portal, and Security Portal only. There is no self-serve option to add an outreach tracking domain yet, so tracking URLs use your Kit account’s domain by default. If a custom tracking domain is important for your campaigns, contact Kit support and we can help you set one up.
Deliverability Considerations
Tracking adds content to your emails that spam filters can detect:
| Concern | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Tracking pixels flagged as bulk mail | Keep tracking off (or click-only) on cold campaigns; a custom tracking domain matching your sending domain also helps |
| Link rewriting looks suspicious | A custom tracking domain makes redirect URLs appear first-party |
| HTML emails vs plain text | Kit generates simple HTML with paragraphs, basic inline styles, and an optional 1px pixel |
Enable tracking when the data will help you make a specific decision. Disabling it does not guarantee inbox placement.
Quick Checklist
- Decide which tracking types you need with the measurement limits in mind
- Enable tracking on your campaign’s edit page
- Monitor engagement stats on the campaign show page
- Review per-message engagement on the message detail page
- Don’t over-index on open rates — they’re directional, not precise
Next Steps
- Creating Campaigns — campaign settings and AI directives
- Suppressions, Bounces, and Deliverability — protecting sender reputation
- Custom Domains — DNS setup for your admin, career, and security portal domains