How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email (Part 1)

by | How To, Tools

There are certain ways to craft email messages that will compel active and passive candidates to open, read, click, and respond to your emails. But how can you tell if a candidate has actually opened the email?

Knowing your email statistics will help you learn what messages are working and what needs improvement as you reach out to your lists of job candidates. But this doesn’t have to be a difficult metric to retrieve. Technology has made it very simple to know which candidates are opening your emails, who isn’t, what they are clicking on.

LeadBoxer

This tool helps track leads and then tells you when they are ready to communicate. It tracks not only people via email but you can also track people on your website. However, for the purpose of this post, we’ll only discuss the email aspect of LeadBoxer.

The main email benefits of this tracking tool are to help you “see who opens your emails, who clicks on which links, and which pages they then browse on your site.”

How It Works:

Once you create an account, if you use Gmail, you can add the browser extension from the Chrome store here. You will need to add your unique dataset ID code from your account to get started. (They also have instructions to track emails in Outlook and MailChimp.)

Then, compose an email in Gmail as you normally would, but before you send it, be sure the LeadBoxer icon is on (blue means it’s on and gray means it’s off). “When you hit send, the extension will: add a tracking pixel to the email in order to track the email open, and add additional parameters to the links already present in your email.”

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email
How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email?

Once you begin emailing people, they will appear in your dashboard where you can keep track of their activities and filter people based on various criteria.

Through their LeadScore feature, “you can set exactly what criteria you value most and a lead score will automatically be assigned to leads when these criteria are met.” As you adjust these criteria, it will change how people are ranked and prioritized with the highest scoring people appearing at the top of the list.

You can even track specific pages of your website that people visit.

You can try LeadBoxer through a free 14-day trial period or sign up for one of their paid plans, starting at $79 per month. Learn more here.

SalesHandy

An email tracking plugin for Gmail and Outlook users. (We’ll take a look only at the Gmail plugin in this blog.) “SalesHandy helps you reach more candidates, schedule more interviews, and hire more employees within a short span.”

This powerful email tool will let you:

  • Track opened emails
  • Track opened history
  • Schedule emails
  • Use email templates
  • Create email sequences and send automated follow-up emails
  • Track attachments
  • Send you real-time read notifications
  • Share with your team
  • Copy to your CRM
  • And much more

How It Works:

You can install the browser extension from the Chrome store here.

“Get real-time a double tick email open notification within Gmail inbox where blue double tick represents that user has opened the email. Also, get a desktop notification when your email has been opened/read by the recipient.

Get advanced email analytics report that includes important engagement data like the number of times your email has been opened, history of email opens, reply rate, and link tracking. Apart from this, know the recipient’s location, device, OS and exact time when your email gets open.”

Once in Gmail, at the top right corner, you’ll see the Sales Handy buttons.

Then, when you compose an email, you’ll see their buttons at the bottom of the email and you can choose what to track, turn off and on, and schedule emails.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email?

In your SalesHandy dashboard, in the email section, you can see detailed analytics, like who opened an email, replied, number of link clicks, and last activity.

Through this dashboard, depending on which plan you sign up for, you can find multiple features on the left side, such as templates, documents, and email campaigns.

SalesHandy is always free to use and gives you unlimited tracking on your emails. However, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial of their Plus plan to test more of their features. Choose from three paid plans, ranging from $9 per user per month to $50 per user per month. Learn more here.

Bananatag

Another email tracking tool that can retrieve data based on someone opening and clicking on your emails. One of the most beneficial features is that it works right in your preferred email platform (ie. Gmail or Outlook). You do not have to use an outside site to manage and view this information but you will get receive an account within their system.

You are asking How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email?

Bananatag will send stat info directly to your email so you can see who opened and clicked on links.

How It Works:

(For the purpose of this blog, we’ll focus on Gmail, but you can also use Outlook with this tool.)
Once you install the browser extension here, you will see the extension icon when you open or restart your Gmail account in the top right corner. You can change settings and access your Bananatag account from there.

When you compose an email, you’ll see a new bar at the bottom with a few features on it. You can choose when to track an email by turning it off and on, schedule an email to be sent later, and even connect it to your CRM.

Write your email as normal and add any links. Then, you can send it immediately, or send it later by scheduling it through their tool.

Once the recipient opens the email and clicks on it, you’ll receive an email right in Gmail with the information.

It will tell you what they clicked on, where they are located, what device they are using, which browser they viewed it in, and more.

When you click to view more details, your Bananatag account allows you to view all this information and track detailed metrics.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

Bananatag does offer a free account but it is limited to tracking only 5 emails per day and it only tracks opened emails. To get more features, choose from one of the other two plans: $12.50 per month for the Pro plan and $25 per month for the Teams plan. With these paid plans, not only can you track opened emails and clicks on links, but you can schedule emails, track attachments, get a full-featured dashboard, access their email templates to help you craft better messages, and more. Learn more here.

Recruiters no longer have to stay in the dark when it comes to their email marketing, wondering if potential candidates are opening and reading their emails. Use these email tracking tools to find out who is interested, who isn’t, and which messages are working or need improvement within your hiring process.

Boomerang for Gmail

This tool has many various email features to use within Gmail, such as pausing your inbox, setting up reminders, and scheduling emails, but we’ll only review the tracking feature in this blog. You can install the free browser extension from the Chrome store here.

How It Works:

After you install the extension, compose an email as you normally would. You’ll now see the Request Read Receipt and Track Clicks icon in the bottom right of the email. Click it to track your email. “Boomerang will add a read receipt notification to the bottom of the message, and will also track clicks on any links you have included in the body of the message.”

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email?

Boomerang will send you an email notification that your email has been read. In this message, you can also track more details, like when they opened and what they clicked on.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

Just click on the Boomerang icon at the top and go to Manage scheduled messages and it will take you to the dashboard.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email
How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

You can also track responses by setting up a boomerang, which means the email will pop up again in your inbox after a specific amount of time that you set based on certain criteria, like if the person doesn’t respond or open the email. Then, you can follow-up and take next step actions.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

The free version of Boomerang has many features, however, it is limited to only 10 messages per month. To get unlimited messages and even more features, choose from one of their paid plans, ranging from $5 per month to $50 per month. Learn more here.

Hubspot Sales

Hubspot is a very robust CRM (Customer Relations Management) platform and offers a lot more features and services, but for the purpose of this blog, we’re only going to review the email tracking tool.

You can install the free browser extension from the Chrome store here. You will need to sign up for a free Hubspot account and connect your email in order to use this extension.

How It Works:

After you create your Hubspot account, install the browser extension. When you open Gmail again, you’ll see the Hubspot icon in the top right corner. Click on it to turn it on.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

Then, you’ll need to connect your email to your Hubspot account.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

Once you’re connected, compose an email as you normally would, but now you’ll see a new bar of features you can use. Most importantly, you can decide which emails to track by turning it off and on.

After you send the email, go to the Hubspot icon at the top right in your browser. From there, you’ll see all emails you’ve sent that are being tracked and can view if they’ve been opened or not, how many times, and when.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

This tool is completely free to use but it is limited. To use more features, you’ll have to choose one of their paid plans, starting at $50 per month. Learn more here.

Email Tracker

A very simple email tracking tool. It works with Gmail, Outlook / Hotmail, Google Inbox, and Yahoo Mail. You can download the browser extension for free on the Chrome store here.

How It Works:

Once you install the extension, just compose an email as you normally would. You’ll notice a second button at the bottom next to the Send button if you choose not to track the email.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email?

After you send the email, go to your Sent folder and you’ll see a circle to the right, signifying that the email is being tracked. Once they read the email, the circle will turn into a checkmark.

Hover over the checkmark to view how many times they’ve opened the email and when.

How to Tell If a Candidate Has Opened Your Email

This is a free tool to use with unlimited tracking, however, if you want to view more statistics, then you’ll need to upgrade to the paid pro plan. With the free version, you can only track if they opened the email, how many times, and when they opened it. To track link clicks, you will need to purchase the pro plan. Learn more here.

Learn more about your emailing efforts when you start tracking your messages with these tools. They truly are a recruiter’s dream come true!

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