Email Analytics and Notification Issue

[NCelestino]

I have identified a bug that is causing a significant issue for my team from using Hubspot. Our account has an outlook email account linked. We use this to communicate with our prospects, particularly the email analytics. 

We initially noticed an unusually high amount of email analytics in a recipients email section of their profile that indicate the recipient(s) have opened an email which was sent through Hubspot multiple times. We then noticed that upon going into the email of a recipient in the sent items folder of the linked outlook account, that a notification was appearing almost immediately which says "Hi "recipients name" "recipient opened 2 seconds ago" , we noticed this occurred a suspiciously frequent number of times, with a lot of different recipients by clicking into the email sent in the sent items folder of the linked outlook account. We then went into the email section of the contact in Hubspot and looked at the email analytics for that recipient and there was an email analytic that showed the recipient had opened the email which coincided with the same time the notification appeared upon viewing the same email in the outlook account. 

To test to see were these email analytics accurate or related to a bug we have tested the above process multiple times over the course of days and it is the case that the email anlytics are innaccurately being shown as the recipient opening an email which was sent through Hubspot from a linked outlook account, we have tested it repeatedly and each time we go into an email in the sent items folder of the linked email account, the notification appears upon opening the sent email and then the email analytic is updated to that contacts profile in Hubspot. So by doing this we can prompt the system to present an email analytic that the recipient opened an email at the precise time that we go into the sent items folder of the linked email address, and the recipient did not actually open the email. 

Below I will outline, describe, paste and attach 3 screenshots, in them you will see the bug for yourself. Note: the date and time in each screenshot. 

Screenshot 1: You will see this is the email section of a contact, who was sent an email through Hubspot from the linked outlook account on July 19th at 2:26pm. The recipients email, you can see on the top left of the screenshot. The recipient responded to that email the following on July 20th at 2:31pm. 

Screenshot 1 was taken as you can see from the date is July 28th 2022 at 1:37am, you can see there is no other email analytic above the response from the recipient. 

Screenshot 2: You can see this is a screenshot of the same email sent from the linked outlook account through Hubspot on July 19th at 2:26pm. The recipient's email, you can see is the same as the email in screenshot 1. You can see the notification I alluded to above ( "Hi "recipients name" "recipient opened 2 seconds ago" ) and you can see the date and time as being July 28th at 1:38am, which is directly after I went into the recipients profile on Hubspot and took the screenshot of the email section of the contacts profile. 

Screenshot 3: You can see this is the same profile as screenshot 1, you can also see the date and time being July 28th at 1:38am and the email analytic inaccurrately showing the recipient opened the email at the same time as screenshot 2, note I actually clicked into the email in the sent items folder twice hence why there is two email analytics at the same time. 

As mentioned, this has been tested multiple times with the same result everytime. We are able to prompt the system to indicate the recipient of an email sent through Hubspot has opened an email when they have not, as the same results occur upon the completion of the process to go into the sent items folder of a linked email account and individually click into the email a recipient was sent. This is and has already has caused a good deal of problems for us and we request immediate assistance as were are treating it as an urgent issue, 

Please advise us on how to address this bug.  

[kvlschaefer]

Hi @NCelestino,

Thank you for reaching out. I apologize for the data or business impact this may have caused.

In recent months, email providers and security systems have gotten stricter with security checks to ensure inboxes stay safe. When email providers scan incoming emails for any malicious content, they often load the HubSpot tracking pixel, which can trigger an email open notification as mentioned in this help article.  When the tracking pixel is loading during this check, HubSpot would not be able to distinguish human open from non-human open. This related thread goes into further detail on this. 

I also wanted to share this tutorial on how to block self open notifications on  Outlook: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/email-tracking/block-self-open-notifications-with-the-hubspot-sales-ou...

Our Product Team is always working to improve email tracking functionality so that you get as few notifications as possible from automated inbox checks and as many notifications as possible from real email engagements by your customers.

Thank you,

Kristen