When you send marketing emails, knowing who opened your message or clicked a link offers valuable context for your marketing team. However, data protection rules in some regions require contacts to give explicit consent before you can track their email behavior. Balancing deliverability with strict data privacy is essential for building trust with your audience.
Positive User gives your team workspace-wide control over email tracking. By understanding how email tracking works and when to turn it off, your team can align campaigns with legal standards while maintaining seamless communication.
Email tracking allows you to measure campaign performance by monitoring when recipients open your messages or click on embedded links. In Positive User, this behavioral tracking relies on an invisible 1x1 transparent tracking pixel embedded in the email's HTML code, alongside modified link structures. When an email is opened, the pixel loads and logs the event, capturing open time. Positive User automatically appends a tracking parameter (__ca__chat) and a unique key to links in your message. When a contact clicks a link, the system registers the click for your campaign metrics, sets a cookie to connect their website activity with their contact record, and directs them to the target webpage.
More about it: “How Email Opens and Clicks Are Tracked”
To align with modern privacy standards and guidance from European data protection authorities (such as France's CNIL and Italy's Garante), recipients must give explicit consent before their email engagement can be tracked.
In Positive User, email tracking is controlled at the workspace level. Turning tracking off disables both open tracking (the invisible pixel) and click tracking (the “__ca__chat” link parameter) simultaneously across all one-time and automated campaigns.
To change tracking settings in Positive User (available for admins only):
Navigate to “Workspace settings” → “Emails” → “Email tracking”.
Select your preferred mode:
Enable for all (Default): Every email sent from Positive User includes the invisible pixel and link tracking parameter (__ca__chat).
Disable for all: Emails are sent without tracking pixels or parameter-modified links. Links function normally as standard URLs.
Confirm your selection in the pop-up dialog ("Turn on email tracking for everyone" or "Turn off email tracking").
Turning off tracking does not remove statistics from campaigns sent while tracking was active.
Disabling email tracking affects several areas across the platform:
Area | Behavior |
Link Behavior | All links in your emails remain fully functional for recipients, but clicks will not be logged. |
Campaign Creation | An informational banner appears in the “Summary” step: "Email tracking is off - you won't see open or click stats for this campaign." The “Behavioral tracking” row displays open & click tracking off. |
A/B Testing | The “Add A/B testing” option is hidden during campaign setup, as A/B testing relies on engagement metrics. |
Automations | A yellow “Open & click tracking off” badge appears in the workflow builder. Any automation steps relying on email opens or clicks (action triggers/conditions) will be flagged and will not fire. |
Email statistics depend on whether tracking was active at the moment the email was sent, not on your current workspace setting.
Sent with Tracking ON: Complete open and click data remain visible in reports, even if workspace tracking is disabled later.
Sent with Tracking OFF: No tracking pixel is included at send time, meaning no engagement data is collected.
How reporting views display untracked data:
Campaign Details: The “Open & Click Rates” sections and “Engagement Metrics” display empty values (-). An overlay indicates: "Open and click tracking is off".
Contact Details: The “Emails” section in the contact profile shows dashes (-) under open and click columns.
Campaign List & Aggregated Email Stats: The overall campaign list view and high-level aggregate email statistics remain accessible in Positive User.
Delivery Logs: You can verify tracking status per email by exporting the CSV, which contains a “tracking_enabled” column (values: “t” for true, “f” for false).
To remain compliant with personal data protection regulations, consider implementing the following practices in your collection and sending strategy.
Sign-up Forms: Include an unchecked checkbox on your web forms allowing subscribers to explicitly opt in to behavioral email tracking. Ensure your privacy policy and informational notices are updated accordingly.
Alternative Collection: If collecting details offline or via third parties, request tracking consent through a follow-up email where only the consent button link is tracked.
Follow-up Frequency: If a contact does not respond to a consent request, wait at least six months before attempting to ask again.
Record Keeping: Maintain logs with timestamps and consent state within your own database to present during potential data protection audits.
Dedicated Unsubscribe Link: Provide a separate, traceable link in your emails specifically for opting out of tracking pixels and link tracking. This must remain independent from the main newsletter unsubscribe link.
Confirmation Page: Ensure the consent withdrawal link directs to a confirmation page.
Preference Center: Consider implementing a central preference center where recipients can independently manage their tracking and subscription choices.
Immediate Application: As soon as a contact revokes consent, their preference must be respected for all subsequent communications.
