The success of targeted email campaigns can usually be measured by the data brought back from your email tracking software. While most marketers simply look over email marketing statistics without ever knowing how they are tracked, true professionals understand how their email tracking software pulls and compiles the data they pour over on a daily basis.
In order for email tracking software to know the open rates, click through rates, delivery rates, etc. there has to be something that alerts the email tracker to these activities. That’s where cookies and web beacons come into play.
Web Beacons
Web beacons, or web bugs, are small, transparent graphic images (gif) that are placed on a website or in an email message. Email tracking software uses these images to record actions taken by the recipient of the mail message, such as if it was opened or if they visited a link embedded in the email. It is basically the catalyst for tracking email marketing statistics.
It is able to harness so much information because the graphical nature of the web beacon uses presentation code that tells your computer what to do when it is opened. This code contains instructions that request the sending server to send more material—in this case the material that records different statistics for the email tracking software.
Cookies
Cookies are used in combination with web beacons because they allow targeted email campaigns to track activity after the email has been opened and the user visits a landing page or other page on a website.