How get info about sent email was read?

Question

I want to send mails to potential customers and need to know if they opened it and if the link/button was clicked. Are there free ways to do it. I use corporative gmail box. Also maybe can I also get time between opening the mail and clicking the internal link/button? What free addons/instruments do you know?

Answer 1

Read/opened notification:
There is no way to guarantee always receiving "read/opened" notification.
Most known ways to get it sometimes :
1. Email return receipt , you can request "delivery" (delivered to server) and "read" notices (read by recipient) to be send back by email
many servers and email client do not support it or turn it off intentionally
2. link with custom id to image on your web servers
many email clients do not load external images in html emails as security precaution

Clicking link in mail:
You can embed custom id in link to your web server
eg http://www.example.com/cliked?campain=e43w&id=wedf4