No Location on activity feed

[GailNYC]

I am writing to complain about your new policy (effective in early August 2019) of not showing location with the email opens.

I rely on that info to let me know if someone is out of town, or if the email has been forwarded to another person in another location.

Can you reconsider this? It's really a big disappointment!

[GailNYC]

Wanted to share a quick update. We continue to investigate solutions for multiple recipient tracking -- including a better way to mitigate self-open notifications. Any solution we implement, however, is unlikely to use IP address -- so exploring the right way to handle it will take us some time. 

In the meantime, we are moving forward with the removal of location data from the activity feed tomorrow to respect recipient privacy. We will continue to update this thread as we make progress.

-Matt

[GailNYC]

Hi folks,

I’m the Director of Product responsible for the sales products. We very much appreciate all this feedback. Removing location was a hard decision, and ultimately we feel it is the right one. There is an ongoing discussion in the industry about the ethics of location data of email recipients. I don’t want HubSpot to be on the wrong side of that discussion, and I want to be proud of what we build. We do understand that for some users, removing the location information from the activity feed is negatively impacting your experience, and so my team and I are looking at ways to improve both self open notifications and multiple recipient tracking. Stay tuned.

Thanks for listening,

Matt 

[GailNYC]

@stiebens61, you're right. While we are still able to minimize the risk of false open and click notifications for any activities that you perform, there are times where this technology simply won't work based on a few different factors. I've ammended my previous comment.

[GailNYC]

Thank you all for sharing your feedback.

We understand that some of our customers use location data to differentiate between recipients in one-to-many email sends. While it’s never an easy decision to remove functionality from our product, we believe this is the right thing to do to protect the privacy of the end customer.

We made the decision to remove the location feature after analyzing its current use and weighing that against its potential for abuse and privacy concerns for the recipients. We are currently exploring other ways to provide this functionality that don’t include revealing location data and will keep our community updated on progress.

Hope this helps!

[GailNYC]

Hi there, 

I'm Elise -- one of the product marketing managers here at HubSpot -- with a quick update on this. 

To start, thank you all for sharing your feedback and voicing your concerns. We always try to strike a balance between giving our customers the tools they want and being mindful of the impact those tools have on their audience. While email tracking is a valuable tool, we believe that tracking location data doesn’t improve the email recipient’s experience, and it feels out of step with evolving consumer expectations around privacy.

[VirginiaBee]

HubSpot is removing the IP address of the person opening the email from the Activity Feed, stating that, "the location data attached to that tracking did not add enough value to either the user or the end-customer-experience."

I'm not sure what users provided feedback that this is not valuable but I can't disagree more.

This is one invaluable component that I use all the time. With this removed we will not be able to tell who opened the email in so many instances. In my Activity it often states that "Someone" opened the email (more often than not). So, the only way I can tell if it was a prospect, client, co-worker or myself is by looking at the location.

[Doug1]

The location data is very helpful when trying the determine whether a contact is a fraud *(i.e. from Nigeria, etc.)  Please leve this functionality.

 I'm quite surprised you would even think about taking it away??  

[stiebens61]

I also agree that removing the location information is a HUGE MISTAKE.  For example, if a colleague opens an email I sent to a prospect, it considers that an "Open". I don't care about that. But when it says for instance, Indianapolis, IN, I know it is my colleague when my prospect is for instance located in Illinois.

This one of the best features of HubSpot and a differentiator.  Again, what a HUGE mistake.

[VirginiaBee]

Exactly what I say. Unbelievable that this is going away.

[stiebens61]

VirginiaBee, in addition, even if the prospect/customer name appears, sometimes it is me re-opening my email for reference or a colleague opening for reference.

However, I know where my client/prospect is located and if it is their location, I know they opended it.  Otherwise, if my location or my colleague's location is shown, I know it was not a true "open" by the client.

[VirginiaBee]

Agreed.

[stiebens61]

Plus, I can tell when the prospect/client opens it AND forwards it on to another location.  So valuable.

[KarieB]

I absolutely agree - we use this information all the time.

When mutiple people are copied on an email we can tell which location opened it for review.  When an email was sent to only one person we can tell if it was forwarded to another person or location.  Many of our customers have multiple facilities.  With the location information we are able to determine if the customer (prospect) opened the email or if our field sales rep who was copied opened it. 

Please do not remove it.  We find this informaiton to be vital to our follow up process.

[VirginiaBee]

Great point regarding the forward. I agree.

[red75116]

I agree that it is unfortunate to remove this information.  The location information appears on the same line as the date and time and it offers ZERO value to remove this.

Please leave it where it is.  Its great to know if users open emails in the office or from home, traveling, etc.  Also, when you CC someone you can usually tell from the location who opened the email.

In this example below, without the location, I would have thought the customer opened this email when it was me?  Hubspot will lose some value with this change.

[SmallBusiness]

This is a *huge* mistake. The product mangement team should reconsider this decision!

There are many scenarions where the location data is helpful. Without it, this tool becomes much less useful. For example, the tool doesn't know that it's me when i switch between desktop to phone. It assumes its a new user. Secondly, Hubspot tool can't distinguish between an email opened by someone on my team visiting a new location vs. the recipient of the email. Thirdly, when I am traveling, hubspot misappropriately tagges me as someone else opening the email. All these, and many more issues are resolved with the location data. Absent it, there are so many false positives

I am certain that many businesses would disagree with Hubspot's claim "that location does'nt add enough value to the user or the end-customer-experience." That's simply inaccurate. Maybe its cheaper for Hubspot, and Hubspot is going to start upcharging for this additional location data...? 

[tylerkelley]

I would like to voice my disapproval of this announcement. The "location" data is critical for me in the following ways:

1. When I send an email to multiple recipients in multiple locations, I know who has and who has not opened the email based on the location
2. I know where my contacts are - whether it be at the office, at home or on vacation and this information is useful for sales
3. When my email is opened in multiple cities at the same time, I instantly know that it has been forwarded and then I can go back to my CRM to see which contacts are in those cities to connect the dots for a deeper campaign (this is critical when working with national clients with offices across the country)

Please reconsider this change as it drastically reduces the value of HubSpot for me and my clients on HubSpot.

[DougDavidoff]

I can't speak for HubSpot, but I'm quite certain that there are two other causes that are actually driving the decision:

1. There's a huge issue around data privacy and the ethics of tracking such information without the reciever's consent (you can see the can of worms in this news about Superhuman: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/superhuman-email-privacy-scandal-explained/

2. There are also likely significant cost increases to be able to access this data

So when they say value, my interpretation is that what they're really saying is "given the increased direct costs and the reputation risk surrounding such data there's not enough value)

While I valued this feature as well, I also understand the rationale. And, when you consider the entire picture I'm not sure I could say that what they're doing is a mistake (let alone a big one).

[DaveCata]

I also strongly disapprove of this important element and value which we NEED as part of our sales. We rely on the location data to discover where our prospect is located (ie out of the office, on the road, or sitting at his or her desk).

It is the most accurate way to see if an email has gotten real traction and been opened by multiple people or if it has been shared within a larger group.

DO NOT CHANGE THIS

[MKHopkins]

I totally agree that this service should be retained.  It has proven invaluable to me.

[VirginiaBee]

Valuable insight. We certainly do not have enough information to assume the exact decision reasoning from HubSpot.

This is one of the features I use numerous time per day.

[AgendaDiscovery]

I echo the comments. The location information, such that it is, helps me know when a message has traction. Location is one of the features of HubSpot that helped us make the decision to use it. It does not need to be 100% accurate but is demonstrates a conversation in various regions. PEASE REVERSE THIS DECISION TO REMOVE THE INFORMATION!

[Agent314]

Strongly opposed to the removal of the location detail. I don't understand your reasoning as you explained it. Did you ask any of your customers about the value proposition?

What I'm afraid of is that the reason you're removing this may not be the reason stated. No disrepect but it was very abrupt. My sense is that the large majority of users of the tool will agree with this sentiment.

PLEASE LEAVE LOCATION INFO AS IS

[ebeck]

Hi there, 

I'm Elise -- one of the product marketing managers here at HubSpot -- with a quick update on this. 

To start, thank you all for sharing your feedback and voicing your concerns. We always try to strike a balance between giving our customers the tools they want and being mindful of the impact those tools have on their audience. While email tracking is a valuable tool, we believe that tracking location data doesn’t improve the email recipient’s experience, and it feels out of step with evolving consumer expectations around privacy.

[tylerkelley]

Hi Elise!

How do you intend on differentiating between opens from unique recipients?

Why does the hypothetcial recipient potential view of the functionality outweigh the value proposition for your paying customers?

Is this the beginning of a larger trend to eliminate all sales intelligence from your platform?