Tracking pixel
A tiny image in the email that loads when images load — used to guess opens.
Say it out loud
“The invisible image that tells us an email was opened. In some countries it needs its own consent.”
An open-tracking pixel is a 1×1 image with a URL unique to the recipient and the send. When the image loads, your platform records an open. Privacy features and image blocking have made the signal unreliable, and separately, some regulators treat placing it as an act that needs its own consent, distinct from consent to receive the email at all.
That string identifies the individual person and the individual send. That is why it is personal data, not analytics.
Click tracking is the same mechanism and gets much less attention than it deserves.
France and Italy have both moved on this. The consent you have to send the email is not automatically consent to measure who read it.
Part yours
The platform does part; the rest is genuinely yours.
Where you find it
- Klaviyo → Settings → Email → Tracking
- Mailchimp → Campaign → Settings → Track opens
What goes wrong
Turning tracking off for France in the ESP and forgetting that link tracking is the same category of processing. Teams disable the open pixel and leave every URL rewritten.
The dated rules behind this
A definition is not a citation. These are the pages with the primary source, the date it was published, and what to do about it.
See also
Where this sits
Stop 2, you build the message. You choose a From address, write a subject line, and add the things the law requires to be in the message.