How do you see who read your offer, and whether they forwarded it?
A proposal attached to an email goes quiet the moment you send it. You do not know whether it was opened, who read it or whether the buyer forwarded it to a finance director. The fix is to send the offer as a personal link, so every visit leaves a record you can read afterwards.
What does a tracked offer link show you?
In anymail an offer is a personal link to your deck or proposal. After you send it, the history shows four things:
| You see | How it is recorded |
|---|---|
| Who read it | With the email check on, each reader confirms an address with a one-time code |
| Which pages | Time each page was open, per reader |
| Whether they came back | Every visit is a session, so a second visit shows as a return |
| Who else joined | An address that was not on the original list is recorded as a forward |
Each of these also lands in the company view. A first visit, a return and a forward each count towards the company temperature, next to clicks and replies.
How do you know someone forwarded it?
The email check is optional for a plain offer and always on for an offer built from a library document. With it on, a colleague who receives the forwarded link is asked for an email address. anymail sends a 6-digit code to that address from your mailbox, and the reader enters it to continue.
Then the address is compared with the list of people the offer was meant for. If it is on the list, the reader is a recipient. If it is not, the reader is recorded as forwarded. For a forward, anymail does three things:
- Adds the person as a prospect, with the company taken from the email domain.
- Guesses a first and last name from the address and marks the guess as a guess.
- Records an
offer_forwardedevent that counts towards the company temperature.
A few addresses are skipped on purpose: addresses on your Suppressions list, your own team members and your own mailboxes. A salesperson who opens their own link is not a new buyer.
Free mail addresses such as a personal webmail account have no company domain. They are attached to the company of the first recipient, because the link left that person's hands.
What does a return tell you?
The first session on an offer is recorded as the first view. Every later session on the same offer is a return. A buyer who comes back on Thursday after reading on Monday has chosen to spend time on the offer a second time.
Reading time per page is the part to look at before a call. A reader who stayed on the pricing page and skipped the case studies gives you your opening question.
Which visits are not counted?
Corporate mail systems often open every link in a message to check it for phishing. If those visits counted, the offer would look read before anyone had seen it. anymail does not record a visit that arrives within 10 seconds of sending, or one that matches the signatures of known link scanners. The page still loads, so a real reader is never blocked.
Open tracking on the email itself is weaker evidence. Apple Mail Privacy Protection fetches the tracking pixel through a proxy whether or not a person read the message. Treat an email open as noise and a visit to the offer as the signal.
What are the limits of this method?
- An offer without the email check records visits but cannot name the reader, and it cannot detect a forward.
- A confirmed address stays confirmed for 7 days in that browser. Two people sharing one browser look like one person.
- A screenshot, a printout or a call where someone reads the offer aloud leaves no record.
- A code is sent for each new address, with a cap of 50 codes per offer per day, so a leaked link cannot turn your mailbox into a mass sender.
- Coarse device and IP-derived data is recorded for offer visits. A data processing agreement is available on request.
The method tells you who engaged and with what. It does not tell you what they thought.
How does anymail connect this to the rest of your outreach?
A forward is a new person at an account you are already working. In anymail that person appears in the same company row as the contact you wrote to, so the offer, the replies and the clicks sit in one timeline. The offers page shows how to send the first one.
Frequently asked questions
Can I see who opened a PDF I attached to an email?
No. An attachment gives you no signal after you press send. A tracked link records each visit, which is why proposals sent as links can be read afterwards.
How does anymail know a link was forwarded?
Each reader confirms an email address with a one-time code. An address that is not on the original recipient list is recorded as a new person who received the link from someone else.
Does an email open count as someone reading my offer?
No. An email open can come from a privacy proxy that fetches the tracking pixel for every message. A visit to the offer page, with time spent on each page, is a stronger signal.
What happens to visits from security scanners?
A visit that arrives within 10 seconds of sending, or that matches known link-scanner signatures, is not recorded. The page still loads normally for whoever opened it.
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