[Mailman-Users] Tell if a recipient reads the newsletter?

[Ashley M. Kirchner]

James Radke wrote:

> We are hoping to start a newsletter to our customers.  One of the
> questions that came up was could we determine if a customer actually
> READ the newsletter.  Is there a way to put something in a newsletter
> so that it logs some type of "CUSTOMER READ NEWSLETTER" in a database
> through a web service, or something like that?

    That depends on how you want to do it really.  One method I see
being used quite often is when someone is sending HTML mail.  You can
embed a tag in the HTML that will refer back to a link on your site that
will automatically update the DB.  Problem is, you have to send out
HTML.

    Another method is to make use of Return Receipts.  You'd have to
read up on that to understand how it works.  For example, if I only
wanted to know whether someone received my email, I would request a DSN
(Delivery Status Notification).  If I wanted to know if the recipient
actually read (or at least displayed) the message, I would request a MDN
(Message Disposition Notification).  All of this (requesting) happens
within the SMTP protocol, so you have to construct your messages as such
- I'm not sure Mailman can do this right out of the box.  I didn't think
it does, but then I haven't played with 2.1 yet, so I can't tell you
what it can or can't do.

--
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  Ashley M. Kirchner <mailto:ashley at pcraft.com>   .   303.442.6410 x130
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