Open, Click & Reply Tracking

Vecta measures three kinds of engagement. They are not equally reliable, and it's worth knowing why before you make decisions from them.

Turning tracking on

Opens and clicks are opt-in per campaign, in the Tracking section of the campaign wizard, and off by default. Replies are independent. They need no pixel, only IMAP details on your SMTP config.

Why open rates lie

• Apple Mail Privacy Protection pre-loads images for all Apple Mail users, recording an open whether or not anyone read it. This inflates opens, often heavily.
• Many clients block remote images by default, so real readers are never counted. This deflates opens.
• The two distortions don't cancel out, and the balance shifts with your audience.

Use opens to compare *your own* campaigns over time. Don't use them to judge whether one specific person read your email, and don't compare them to published industry averages.

Setting up reply tracking

1. 1

   Find your provider's IMAP settings

   Usually a host like imap.yourprovider.com on port 993.

2. 2

   Add them to your SMTP config

   Open the config and fill in the Reply tracking section. Leave username and password blank to reuse your SMTP credentials, which most providers share.

3. 3

   Send a campaign

   Vecta records the Message-ID of every email it sends.

4. 4

   Wait for the background check

   The worker scans your inbox periodically and marks any matching reply.

Where the numbers appear

• Dashboard: totals across the workspace.
• Run detail: opened, clicked and replied for that run, plus a per-contact breakdown.

Engagement never overwrites delivery status. A message stays sent whether or not it was opened, so your delivery figures remain accurate.

Privacy

Tracking people who didn't ask to be tracked has legal weight in some jurisdictions, and ethical weight everywhere. If your audience would object, leave it off: the reply count alone often tells you what you actually need to know.