How to See If Someone Read Your Email (2025 Guide)

In today’s world of digital communication, especially in sales and outreach, knowing whether someone has read your email can offer a significant advantage. It helps Business Development Representatives (BDRs) and Account Executives (AEs) refine their strategies, personalize follow-ups, and close deals faster.

But how exactly can you know if someone opened your email? And in 2025—with growing email privacy policies—is this still a reliable metric?

This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about how to see if someone read your email, alternative engagement metrics to track, and what truly matters in modern email outreach.

Know If Someone Opened Your Email – Table of Contents

• How to See if Someone Opened Your Email in 2025
  
  
• Is Tracking Email Opens Still Relevant in 2025?
  
  
• What Metrics Should You Track Instead of Email Open Rates?
  
  
• The Right Metrics Change Everything
  
  
• Know If Someone Opened Your Email: FAQs
  
  

How to See if Someone Opened Your Email in 2025

1. Built-In Read Receipt Features

Many email clients allow senders to request a read receipt. However, these features are limited in functionality and reliability.

Gmail

• Only available for Google Workspace accounts.
  
  
• Recipients must approve the read receipt request manually.
  
  
• Not available on free Gmail accounts.
  
  

Outlook

• Includes “Request a Read Receipt” and “Request a Delivery Receipt” options.
  
  
• Recipients can decline the request, making it unreliable.
  
  

Both platforms offer basic tracking, but due to recipient control and privacy settings, these options are not always effective.

2. Email Tracking Software and Extensions

A more robust way to see if someone read your email is through email tracking tools. These platforms typically embed a tracking pixel—a tiny invisible image—that gets loaded when the recipient opens the email.

Key features often include:

• Real-time open tracking
  
  
• Link click tracking
  
  
• Email scheduling and follow-up reminders
  
  
• CRM integrations
  
  

These tools are used widely by sales teams to automate engagement tracking and optimize cold email sequences. In 2025, they’ve become smarter and more integrated—but they’re still impacted by growing privacy protections.

3. Manual Image Tracking with HTML

Tech-savvy users sometimes insert an image tag in their email’s HTML code to create a custom tracking pixel. While technically effective, this method:

• Requires HTML knowledge
  
  
• May be blocked by email clients that disable images
  
  
• Poses data security risks if not properly configured
  
  

Because of these drawbacks, it’s not recommended for most professionals.

Is Tracking Email Opens Still Relevant in 2025?

The Rise of Privacy-First Email Features

Tracking email opens used to be a cornerstone of email performance analytics. However, with increasing privacy initiatives—such as Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)—the accuracy of open tracking has plummeted.

Why Open Tracking Is Losing Value:

• MPP preloads images (including tracking pixels), triggering false opens.
  
  
• This inflates open rates—even when users haven’t read the email.
  
  
• It makes automated follow-ups based on opens unreliable.
  
  
• Gmail also blocks suspicious images, adding further inaccuracy.
  
  

By 2025, it’s estimated that between 45% and 65% of users may trigger false positives due to MPP alone. As a result, open rates can no longer be considered a dependable KPI.

What Metrics Should You Track Instead of Email Open Rates?

BDRs and AEs must shift from vanity metrics like open rates to performance-driven engagement indicators.

1. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Definition: Percentage of recipients who clicked a link in your email.

Why it matters:

• Indicates true engagement
  
  
• Reflects interest in your content or offer
  
  
• Helps identify strong CTAs and effective messaging
  
  

Optimization tips:

• Use a clear CTA
  
  
• Keep content concise
  
  
• A/B test links and button placements
  
  

2. Reply Rate

Definition: The percentage of recipients who respond to your email.

Why it matters:

• A direct measure of lead quality
  
  
• Helps qualify interest and move conversations forward
  
  
• Ideal for high-touch sales
  
  

How to improve:

• Personalize each message
  
  
• Ask a relevant, easy-to-answer question
  
  
• Follow up politely after 2–3 days
  
  

3. Conversion Rate

Definition: Percentage of recipients who complete a desired action (sign-up, demo request, purchase).

Why it matters:

• Reflects actual ROI of your campaign
  
  
• Helps align email copy with landing pages
  
  
• Guides strategic decision-making
  
  

Best practices:

• Match email content with landing page value
  
  
• Reduce form fields and friction
  
  
• Add urgency or scarcity for faster conversions
  
  

4. Website Visits

Definition: Tracks how many recipients visited your site from an email.

Why it matters:

• Indicates marketing effectiveness
  
  
• Supports long-term lead nurturing
  
  
• Helps analyze user behavior via web analytics
  
  

Tip: Use UTM parameters to track traffic sources and campaign impact.

5. Secondary Signals

Other indicators also help gauge email performance:

• Bounce Rate: Emails that couldn’t be delivered.
  
  
• Unsubscribe Rate: Reflects content fatigue or irrelevance.
  
  
• Spam Rate: Measures user complaints.
  
  
• Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR): Percentage of clicks from those who opened the email.
  
  

By tracking a mix of these KPIs, BDRs and AEs can develop a more nuanced understanding of campaign performance.

The Right Metrics Change Everything

Switching from open rates to actionable metrics helps sales teams in the following ways:

Improved Personalization

Metrics like reply rate and CTR provide specific insights into audience behavior. These allow for more personalized follow-ups, content optimization, and better segmentation.

Better Resource Allocation

Focusing on conversion rate helps allocate budget and time to strategies that actually move the needle.

Stronger Data-Driven Decisions

Engagement metrics guide content testing, subject line iterations, and audience targeting with hard evidence—not assumptions.