Email Tracking. You either love it or you hate it.  Frequently sending an email is not too dissimilar to sending a letter via the postal service.  You hit “send” and out it goes into the Universe but do you know if it shows up?  There is an increasingly likely chance that your email will be read by the intended recipient and perhaps a text message will appear later from the same person.  Did they get your email? Or is it just a coincidence?

If you use email as part of your business (and who doesn’t) it is often critical that you know whether or not your email was received.  But what about personal email?  This weekend I discovered that I had failed to make note of the time of a teacher conference I needed to attend on Monday morning.  I emailed my daughter’s teacher and I was hoping that she would get it over the weekend – and then I got the message “Email Opened.” Perfect!  Even if I did not get a reply (and I did, thank you, kindly!) I knew that she had received my message.

Last week I dove headfirst into Google Chrome Extensions. Extensions are small programs that run in your browser and enhance or customize your experience.  I recently installed Bananatag.  Bananatag is a Chrome Extension to use with your gmail address that will notify you when an email was opened.  The Basic (5 tracked emails a day) is free and so far, so good! I do not require any extensive reporting, I just occasionally want to know if my email was received.

It’s useful, it’s free. What’s not to like?

I will be testing out additional Google Chrome Extensions. Do you have any favorites?  Anything you would like to be able to do in Google?  I would be happy to see if I can find one.  Just shoot me a like at kelly.doherty@tmi.net!