CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I'm just looking at the "tracked opens" and "unsubscribe requests" of the newsletter we sent out recently and I'm wondering how this is precisely working.

Risking it’s not what you’re asking, but just in case: for opens we embed a small, transparent 1×1 pixel image URL in the email; if the user’s email client is a graphical one and it displays web-originating images and the given user is currently online the open should be tracked – but usually the number of tracked opens is much lower then the number of actual opens (for various reasons).

I sort of understand why a person would have multiple opens at the same time stamp, but why would the same person have up to 4 unsubscribe requests at the same time stamp? Once a person has unsubscribed, he obviously can't unsubscribe again, can he?

I think the unsubscribe request might be recorded the moment the person visits the unsubscribe URL, not when they actually confirm the unsubscribe – if so, given how many people (a) multi-click a URL to open it and/or (b) have, say, browser pre-caching function based on visiting all of the outgoing URLs from a given page, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was how it manifested itself.

Can you please verify this – for example, by sending yourself a mailing and (a) opening it, (b) clicking the unsub URL but without confirming the unsub, (c) clicking it again (again, without confirming), and (d) clicking it for the third time and actually confirming this time, and check the unsub counts after each step?

(I think counting unsubs when the page opens, rather than when a person actually confirms – if it indeed is so – should be considered a bug.)