YAMM read receipts, now in realtime!

Post date: May 21, 2015 3:10:27 PM

In September 2014, we launched a beta version of our email tracking feature for Yet Another Mail Merge. Since then, we've seen a tremendous use of this option and it was time to improve it.

That's why 2 weeks ago we introduced a better dashboard / read receipts report, as a sidebar in Google Sheet.

And now, we are giving you realtime reports of emails opened! Simply keep the sidebar open in your spreadsheet and every time someone opens one of the emails from your mail merge, we will update the report.

How does it work?

YAMM embeds a tiny, invisible tracking image (a single-pixel gif, sometimes called a web beacon) within the content of each message. When the recipient opens the message, the tracking image is referenced and recorded by our system.

Previously, we were using Google Big Query to store those read receipts as this tool provides a perfect, scalable way to stream data, one record at a time (quota of up to 100,000 receipt per second). Sadly, Big Query is not the right tool to let you see those receipts as quickly as we would like (eg: standard quota lets us do up to 20 concurrent queries - not nearly enough for our user base).

But as I've explained before, I've fallen in love with Firebase, and it was a perfect way to use it again. So starting today, we are leaving Big Query for Firebase to give you realtime reports.

Enjoy!