like breaking news today, Google experiment, now display that you're using a open tracking pixel, sneaky pixel in your email. And so people opening their email now on Gmail will see like, oh my God, you know, there's like an invisible pixel or an invisible image is being, you know, in this email. It may be a spam or something like that. And then, you know, do you want to, you know, flag it at spam or whatever, like it's a cool out banner. You know, when someone in personalized or you got, you know, potential scam issue, whatever, but Gmail put like a small banner at the top of the email. - Yeah. So the Joker, I feel like we've been here before. The Joker is, oh boy, now called email's dead, huh? (laughs) Open tracking is dead. Well, that's what people say. I have a different story about it. - Yeah, we should talk about it. That's right. I'm joining here, Jeremy@quickmail.com. Quickmail is the cold email platform for the good cold email agencies that care about deliverability. Use it if you want to send like the pros, baby. And salesbread.com will bring you one lead per day by sending ultra personalized messages so that you don't have to worry about building a list, becoming an expert cold outreach copywriter and frankly filling your pipeline. So salesbread.com. So Jeremy, when did this happen? Let's start there. When is this happening as we speak? - Yes, it's an experiment, I believe. So from the information that I have, so that's why I say it's a breaking news. This is something that's happening for like a couple of weeks. Now, and basically in the world of cold email, some people were like screaming like, oh my God, now we won't be able to use open tracking anymore. Because the funny thing is, at the very beginning, we say like, hey, don't use open tracking. In fact, I remember or recommendation was like, don't use it on the first email. Use it on a follow up, right? Which to this day, I think was still the only tool in the market to be able to do that. I don't understand. Anyway, and then after that, we say like, hey, these days we just recommend like, use it. Doesn't matter anymore. Like we've seen it in a data episode that you could actually have not open tracking tone on and have way better result than open tracking tone off. So. - So, okay, let's kind of define what this experience looks like to the prospect. So there you are in your Gmail app on your phone or in your desktop. You open a message and at the top, there's like a warning bar. Message contains hidden pixels. Is that how it's worded? - Yeah, that's about something like that. It's gray. So it's not, you know, it's not those, I think they have like fishing warnings where it's orange. It's the same thing, but it's just, yeah, it's just gray. I don't have it right under my eyes right now. But this is actually interesting. The reason why I don't see it is because, and for years now, my account always have image disabled. - Oh, I know, that's right. - So every time I open an email that has an email, whatsoever, it just say, hey, there's an email in this message. And of course, when you have like a small cold outreach message, you know, it's an open, it's a pixel tracking, right? So you don't know that. So it's not really new per se, but it is a bit bigger now. And so it's kind of a cold out, right? And people are afraid that, oh my God, if my prospects see that, they're never gonna reply because they think it's spam. - Yeah, well, let's take one step back here. So cold emailers, obviously are concerned about this, but let's go into the world of traditional email marketing that the way I see it will continue to be in their inboxes until we retire and no longer have an email account, whatever. Will they also be subject to this, you know, a MailChimp style email, tell me. - Yes, and this is what is brand. So I reach out to my friends who have CRMs and newsletters, you know, software. And they basically told me like, yep, it's the same for us. We also use, you know, invisible pixel. And yes, people will then see that. But my friend has a different take on that. He say, and so far I can verify that. He says, it's only for new domains, existing old domains don't have any problems. So it's like interesting, right? - Hold on, Jeremy, hold on. Hold on, ready? Let's get sneaky here. Let's put on our black hats first. - I know what you're thinking and you're probably thinking right. - Are we not just gonna start putting a period that looks like an image so that it's not a period, but it's a visible image. So that Google stops putting this message. It's not hidden anymore. - I love what you're saying. I really do, but you know the fact that I really do actually. - The funny thing I was thinking and joking with my team, and we were thinking, you know, at the end, like some signature, they have some lines bar, right? Sometimes you have a line bar and then you have the signature. Why don't we put the pixel doesn't have to be one by one. It could be visible along bar and voila. You know, it's your signature. And on top of that, like I just mentioned, a lot of people have signature in their email anyway that contains a picture of them or picture of like their company, whatever, or logo. So they have the same thing. - Enter the visible open tracking pixel. - Exactly. So, you know, that's something we may want to do, but I got also a spin on that actually, that I want to share with you. But fantastic point, absolutely. I like the dot one, the dot one. - Right, right? - Yeah, yeah. - I mean, so keep spinning. What else is here? (laughs) - Well, here's the other thing that we did. So I was taking my shower, like, I take my shower every day because every day I do 10 kilometers jogging. But a couple of days ago, I was doing, you know I do. (laughs) - Get on with it. What are you going to say? - I was in my shower and I was still thinking of this pixel tracking thing and I'm like, what is shared? It's only happening with Gmail. Why do we apply this role to everyone? So I get on with, out of my shower, I go into Quickmail, I load all the leads that were imported on Quickmail forever. And I determine what is my percentage of actual Gmail. So basically when people do code outreach on Quickmail, I want to figure out what is a percentage of Gmail people that people contact. - Because in my mind, and in the mind of a lot of people, it's like, oh my God, the whole market is 90% right? - 80% right, right. - But the number we had is like 27.5%. It's crazy, which means that, yeah. - That's the customer that has an outlook or custom is the second. - Let me check. Our clue is 29.9. It's even more than Gmail. They're in mind we are B2B space. Right, that's crazy, right? - That's surprising. - You do have 3.5 Yahoo, 3.5% Yahoo. That's probably contractors, you know, and people are reaching out to roofer or whatever, you know, or purer practice. But I found that super interesting. And so I'm like, what do we actually do? Why do we actually give the guideline to disable open tracking if it is only a problem for Gmail clients? So what we did is in the same day, we implemented an option in Quickmail that says, disable open tracking for and then provider. So for Gmail, Microsoft, all that. And so basically we are like, if you're concerned about that, you just tick these books and then you could still leave your open tracking. But that means like, when we send an email to your Gmail in books, it's just not going to contain the pixel. Anyway, that's one of the things. - That's smart. Now, I'm coming back to the, to that like workaround where, - Okay, I'll have to disable one. - I'll do it. - Just put a visible one. It looks, it could be a one by one image. Is it literally just if invisible, put the warning? If it's one by one pixel. - I believe so. - Yeah, yeah, I believe so. I believe so, yeah. - So I'd probably find something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughing) - And I'll know, it's like, it makes us laugh 'cause like, that might, I mean, we'll have to test, but what an easy way to go around that, you know? (laughing) - Yeah, we'll do that. - Now, here's what I'm wondering, in that banner, 'cause I haven't seen it, is there a call to action there? Like this email contains tracking pixel, click here to report spam, that would be scary to me. Or if it's just like-- - Yes, it is actually. - It is actually. I'm gonna try to find it. So let me put the podcast on pause a little second. There we go. So this is how it looks like. - Yeah, images in this message are hidden. This message might be suspicious or spam. And then the big box says, the big call to action buttons has show images, and then there's a smaller button that says-- - It's a window reaction, yeah. - So I definitely don't want this there. That would be a strike against open tracking with email in my book. But again, like maybe that visible open tracking is the answer. - Yeah, I mean, for removing this message, definitely. I think that's, I think the short thing is probably to, no, I think it's fine. That's, I like you have a suggestion of replacing dots with black image. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, funny. - Yeah, that's a really funny one. - Here's my question. So let's get technical here for a second. But if I use my, let's say headshot as an image, could I somehow associate that with my open tracking image? - Not really. I mean-- - I just run with me for a second. So you know how we have like-- - Oh, we need to host it, that's a problem. - Yeah, we'll need to host it, that's a problem. But the other interesting thing is, huh. Nah, nah, nah, yeah, I will need to host it, which will be problematic. But the easy way really is to just say like, like I say, like having like, you know, a small bar, like a HR type of bar that is just an image. Because then in this case, it's not even one by one. It's visible, you know, whatever. So let's still work around for that. Or you could just like not care about open tracking too. Like a lot of people really do. And then they go for just plain text instead of just like, you know, trying to sort of like game the thing. - Yeah. - I prefer keeping an eye on my open tracking actually for the trend, but you know, that's just me. And again, I can have it with Gmail as well. With Microsoft as well, if I want it. - And just curious, like, when you send a true plain text email, what do you see in terms of reply rates compared to ones with open tracking, for example? Do we know if it makes a heck of a difference? A little bit? - I don't know. I will need to check the stats for that. - Be cool. Might be cool for another date episode. - Definitely. I'll put it on. So we'll do it with a small batch campaign as well for low volume campaigns. - Right. There you go. All right, Jeremy. Well, thanks for breaking this news. Again, that is the warning bar, essentially. Images in this message are hidden and then show, but it sounds like there's enough workarounds here where this is not a nail in the coffin for cold email. - I don't think you are like freaking out right now. It's like we're super chill. And so anyone who's freaking out, I mean, that's overreacting really for this, like-- - Exactly. - I mean, we have Google bus doorboards. So, you know, that's fine. That's the yearly Google mess. And then we'll see what they come up with next year. - Yeah, honestly, if this is it, what do we queue for almost? That would be actually really nice. That's an easy slap on the wrist. And frankly, I see a lot of workarounds coming along. And if you're still listening and concerned, keep in mind, the male chimpers out there are facing the same issue. So it's basically like a marketing message contains open tracking. We're gonna be tired of seeing this banner from all kinds of senders. - There is more to that. Like people with CRM as well, like totally legit, you know, reply ticketing systems. Like, you know, help scout and stuff like that. They all use it in the ad. - Right. - In the ad-visible tracking, so. - Yeah, that'll be in your customer support email, right? - Yep. - Absolutely. - Although, I promise, Jeremy, let's make-- - But the domain-- - The domain is not new. (laughs) - There. And-- - But let's make a prediction. - I just think like we're gonna start seeing, true. We're gonna just start seeing visible, open tracking pixels and all forms of emails, you know, like, and maybe best practice. But time will tell and thanks for the breaking news report. - We'll add a feature, don't worry. We got some clients back, so we'll be there. - And now you do. All right, Jeremy, if you like the cast, core stock quickmod.io is your next stop. And thanks, Jeremy, good stuff. - Yeah, thanks, Jack.
