Tracking Email Clicks

[FraserGreen]

I am using Power Automate to send emails and I would like to track if the email is being opened/any links are being clicked, is this possible? 

The contents of the email are autogenerated and links vary every time, I did think about tagging links but since they change every day that would be effort intense (and manual). 

[leo85 · Accepted solution]

Hi @FraserGreen ,

tracking email clicks is not possible with Power Automate.

Email tracking in general is done by embedding individualized elements (like images) within emails which are loaded from an external server. Then the server tracks which elements are loaded.

Regards,

Leo

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[FraserGreen]

No worries, I had assumed that but was hoping for some sort of add-in/technique to do it in. 

[planetparker]

It might be worth pointing out that you actually can track email opens with Power Automate.  It requires you to use the pixel image tracking method, coupled with a Power Automate HTTP trigger.  In the HTML of your email, you place the <img> tag with the source set to the URL generated by your Power Automate flow HTTP trigger.  Then in your flow action you return an image blob representation of your single pixel image.  Then elsewhere in that same flow, you can do whatever you want to facilitate logging and tracking.  For example, you can simply add a record to a SharePoint list.  Use of parameters can also help you track specific email campaigns or whatever.

I got the idea for this from this post about using a similar method to track Power BI report activity:
PBIPixel.png (1×1) (datachant.com).

Hope that helps.

[r_voyager]

Hi,

you tried this method? Can you show in working order? 

I'm trying to achieve the same , but don't know how to put this in order.

[dataadminaustin]

@r_voyager

Using some of the ideas from @planetparker, I was able to figure this out and track email opens from Power Automate. This took me 2 separate flows, plus the api link embedded in whatever other flows you send emails from. Here is a sample of the flow:

There were 2 areas of complication when creating this process.

1. First, you need some unique variable that is consistent in your email and your database, but it has to be embedded in the email so that you can retrieve it when adding the email data to a database or MS list. That is what you should use the "Relative path" for. I used the flow id so that i did not have to create my own unique variable for every email. Plus - when sending an email, you do not have the internet message id or graph message id.
2. Second, some email clients (outlook mobile app specifically) call the api twice when you first open an email in their app. I created a workaround by converting my email tracking flow to a non-concurrent flow requiring each run to happen separately. Then, I added a check to see if the selected item in the database had been updated in the last 30 seconds. If true, do not update the data with another view, if false, add 1 to the current "Read Count" value.
   
   

You take the url from the "When a HTTP request is received", place it in an img tag as the src (ie. <img src="api address" height="1" width="1">), replace your unique parameter with a value unique to the email, and place it at the bottom of the html email in the flow where you are sending an email from.

Then you need a flow with the trigger "When a new email arrives" (I used when a new email arrives in a shared mailbox v2). In this flow, you add your email data to your database along with the unique id that was embedded into the body if the email previously so that you can search the database when the api is called.

This is simpler than I thought, but it does come with its complications. I would be happy to provide more details and examples if someone comes across this and wants to add this.

[JoseAntonio22]

Hi! Could you share more details? I would like to build this cloud flow! It will help me!

[PJS-Data-Admin]

@JoseAntonio22 Are you looking to track email clicks or email views from emails sent through power automate?

[JoseAntonio22]

Track emails clicks from emails through power automate!

[PJS-Data-Admin]

@JoseAntonio22 Sorry for the delay. There are two flows that need to be created in order to track emails click.

1. One flow will track the emails in your preferred location, I used MS Lists.
2. The other flow is triggered by the click of the link and will update a column for the specific email.
   
   

Flow 1:

• Trigger: When a new email arrives in a shared mailbox (v2)
• 
• It is straight forward, I get all information from the email and track the email data in a MS list.
• Then, I have a condition the checks if "/linktracking/" exists in the email body. This text is only in emails that have the link tracking link. If it exists, I update the email item and set the "Clicked Status Value" column to "Unclicked" and add the "Flow Run ID" the is embedded in the email body. In order to properly track and append data, you need a consistent id to search by.

Flow 2:

• Trigger: When an HTTP request is received
• In the trigger action card, there is a value called "Relative path". This is what we need to use to pass the link through the url from the flow that sends the email. I use the following:
  • /trackertype/linktracking/emailsubject/{emailsubject}/linkemailmessageid/{linkemailmessageid}/redirecturl/{redirecturl}
• To pass the url through the flow, we will have to encode when sent and decode it when clicked.
  • Encode expression:
    • replace(replace(replace(replace(outputs('Original_email_link_value'), '/', '_slash_'), '.', '_dot_'), '?', '_qmark_'), ':', '_colon_')
  • Decode expression:
    • replace(replace(replace(replace(triggerOutputs()['relativePathParameters']['redirecturl'], '_slash_', '/'), '_dot_', '.'), '_qmark_', '?'), '_colon_', ':')
• 
• In the flow above, we decode the url in the relative path, then we have a "Do until" action that checks database until a match is found since the email link can be clicked before the email is tracked (takes about 1 minute for an email to be tracked.)
• Then we update the item, set "Click Status Value" to "Clicked" and add one the number of clicks current in the database: add(outputs('Get_item')?['body/ClickCount'], 1)
• Below gets added into the flow that sends the email, replace the url in the email with the output of "Set email link tracking url value":
• 

This is a very consolidated description of how this is done so please let me know what questions you have throughout the process. This looks more complicated than it is, but it is fairly simple overall.

[leo85]

Hi @PJS-Data-Admin,

is that parsing not overly complicated for this use case. 

Instead of parsing the whole url and encoding/decoding it, you can simply utilize the queries parameters of the "When an HTTP request is received" trigger.

So you could pass something like the following url in the email:

https://prod-110.westeurope.logic.azure.com:443/workflows/[flowID]/triggers/manual/paths/invoke?api-version=2016-06-01&sp=%2Ftriggers%2Fmanual%2Frun&sv=1.0&sig=[sig]&subject=[Email Subject]&trackingid=[trackingID]

Then the trigger will do the work for you and you can simply access the subject and trackingid via the queries parameter:

triggerOutputs()?['queries/subject']
triggerOutputs()?['queries/trackingid']

Regards

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[PJS-Data-Admin]

@leo85 The encoding is mainly for passing a clickable URL through another URL. When the email is sent, there is a clickable button in the email with a redirect URL that is created during that flow run. When the button is clicked, it triggers the "When an HTTP request is received" trigger which then decodes the redirect URL, not the entire request URL. The response then sends the user to the correct URL using JavaScript and proceeds to track the details. I added some examples below:

• Clickable link in email sending flow:
  • 
  • This is the encoding expression for the Redirect URL in the request URL

replace(replace(replace(replace(outputs('Original_email_link_value'), '/', '_slash_'), '.', '_dot_'), '?', '_qmark_'), ':', '_colon_')

• Decode only redirect URL and respond to request with new URL:
  • 
  • This is the expression for decoding just the "redirecturl" parameter.

replace(replace(replace(replace(triggerOutputs()['relativePathParameters']['redirecturl'], '_slash_', '/'), '_dot_', '.'), '_qmark_', '?'), '_colon_', ':')

There are probably other ways to do this, but this is what has worked for me. I have not worked with the queries parameter in Power Automate yet, do you have an example?

[JoseAntonio22]

Can I apply this same functionality in a timeline, specifically using email templates?

[PJS-Data-Admin]

@JoseAntonio22I believe so but I have not tested. I mainly use this tracking functionality on internal company emails. I have an HTML email template that I use in all automated emails and I just replace the url with the tracker url.

[JoseAntonio22]

https://prod-110.westeurope.logic.azure.com:443/workflows/[flowID]/triggers/manual/paths/invoke?api-... &sig=[sig]&subject=[Email Subject]&trackingid=[trackingID]

How can I get the email subject and trackingid dynamically? That is, the template takes those internal values and thus can send the data dynamically.

Speaking in the context of the model driven app email template.

[PJS-Data-Admin]

@JoseAntonio22  I have not worked with model driven app email templates, but this mentions some details: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/user/email-dynamic-text

For tracking ID, I use the ID from the flow run in Power Automate so that I do not need to create my own unique tracking ID:

workflow()?['run']['name']

Above may need to be adjusted if you are sending multiple emails in the same flow.

All of this tracking, for me, is done through flows that send emails, record emails, and track clicks. That is how i am able to get all the dynamic values without issue.

[izlim]

Hi @PJS-Data-Admin , thank you for your helpful examples! Do you have any idea on how to track email views? Thank you!

[PJS-Data-Admin]

@izlim It is the same concept and structure as tracking email clicks, but there are some nuances to this one. This tracking method is not 100% accurate since Apple products block tracking pixels, but it does work. I only use this for internal company emails as there are laws that need to be followed when it comes to email tracking for marketing emails. See some samples below:

• In flow read tracking pixel:
  • 
  • Place output of "Set email read tracking image value" at bottom of HTML email: 
    • 
• Tracking Flow:
  • Trigger:
    • 
  • The body of the flow needs a base 64 encoded image so that you can respond to the request with an image. Every time the image is loaded (email is opened), send image back and the track read.
    • 
  • I have a "Do until" loop that is checking if the email has been tracked in my database yet. Since it takes about a minute for my backend flow to track an email that was sent, I have this loop keep checking until the email was added to the database. 
  • The rest of the process looks like this:
    • 
    • I noticed that reading emails on the outlook mobile app tend to display as 2 reads so I added conditions to help mitigate that issue. This condition just checks if the modified date of the sharepoint list item is less than or equal to the current date minus the number of seconds it took for the "Do until" loop to run. If no, then I have a second condition check if the sharepoint list "Read count" is less than 1. If yes, increment the read count. This is just 2 layers of protection to make sure reads are tracked as accurately as possible.
    • This is what my database looks like:
      • 

This is a basic summary but let me know if you have any questions or issues!!

[bsm]

I have a similar flow nearly built but something is just off. It's throwing a 401 authentication error for some reason. My img is in open/public accessible blob and the 401 is preventing the trigger of the second flow to run. Any help much appreciated. Not sure if possible to connect via chat or zoom or something.