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.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
@heathcliff I'm guessing you're kidding, but if not... "Crickets = Silence" 🙂
HS doesn't care. Doubtful there will be any solutions anytime soon. We've now managed to let them know we haven't found any external remedies yet so there is no urgency. And don't forget, this is a political issue unfortunately. Lawyers.
But, I still a positivity guy. So this too will resolve one way or another. This, or something better. Have a good week.
I agree to this. Without this feature hubspot is useless for me!
I access my emails from another machine all the time and form different places. The only way I can tell if it was me who opened it or my recipient is from the location!!
The activity is utterly useless. @mschnitt, how does this help me? "Someone" opened my email several times. The two people I sent this to are contacts of mine, in HubSpot. Why are they identified as "Someone?" And, the same "Someone" did not open it four times. Different people opened it.
I suspect that most of the responders in this thread are power users which Hubspot inherited from Sidekick. Since I am one of those, I don't think we have a negotiation power, Hubspot doesn't care about our $10/m and they know very well how much each one of those commented here pays. I even think they have an interest in getting rid of us to stop supporting an interface (and pricing) which new users have no access to.
Does anyone here pay more than $10/m and/or is not a Sidekick user?
I'm going to try to attach screenshots from SalesHandy. Their format is different than Hubspot. For Saleshandy, the opens aren't indicated in Outlook. You have to go to the Saleshandy website for the summary. In the first screenshot it shows the address email, subject line, how many times it's been opened (if that's the activity you click on), and the time it was opened. The second screenshot shows how it looks if you click on the number of opens. For some, it shows location. If the email is somehow linked to gmail or yahoo, you just get a Gmail open with no location. Sometimes you get some gmail and some location, like in the 3rd screenshot, which also indicates it's been open by more than one person. The cost is $16/ month, though you have to pay for the whole year in advance.
@Agent314 I have Outlook, and use 7 or 8 email accounts. One is Microsoft Exchange, two are Godaddy-registered, two are gmail, one is hover. SalesHandy allowed me three emails max with tracking/ location ID. It seemed initially like they only allowed one, I said out of the question, and they allowed 3. I can give you the contact name. As I said, it's $16/month, but you have to pay for a year (drag!).
Seriously, HubSpot? I wonder whether they ask paying customers before implementing these updates. In this case, they clearly did not.
I find this feature extremely useful. It helps me evaluate whether a prospect or client is traveling, which provides a well-informed perspective while engaging prospects and clients.
Well, I canceled HubSpot and have bought a plan on SalesHandy, which tracks opens and offers locations, except in the case of Gmail based or Yahoo based emails. Not perfect, but certainly better than HubSpot is offering.
The decision to take away the location of opened emails, has taken away a lot of the added-value hubspot offers. I can no longer tell if the user has actually opened my email or if it is a colleague or the system is recognizing me. Huge disappointment that this is no longer available. please bring it back!
Agree, that this is a big disappointment as there are users that do rely on location - we operate on a global scale, and good to see where opens based on locale. Hubspot failed users on this decision. We are looking at other applications like Yesware, Sales Handy, and others.
Again, like I said before... there's a lot of politics in this. Which is a shame. Like we don't already have enough of that? Sad... There's such a good opportunity for HubSpot to step up and do something good for it's customers. Do they not understand the exponential value of even 100 happy customers. Possibly there are many much bigger internal problems to solve and this just doesn't make the radar for them. But remember, where there's a market...
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