Create an analytics tracking code

In order to generate your stats, you need to include our tracking code in your email. When your email is viewed by your subscribers, this tracking code will load an image from our servers. This enables us to discern what email client the recipient was using, and how they interacted with your email like reads, prints, and forwards.

Be sure to check out our step-by-step video guide at the bottom!

Create a new tracking code

Animated gif showing the Tracking dropdown in Visual Builder to start creating a new tracking code

To get started, we recommend you create a tracking code from within an email project. This will ensure your email tracking and reporting are linked to your email project and available in the context of that email's workflow. There are two places within an email project to create a tracking code. You can choose Set up in the Tracking section of the email summary view, or you can select New tracking code in the Analytics tab of your email project navigation bar.

Alternatively, you can create one by choosing New tracking code from the Analytics dashboard which is accessible via the Litmus top-level navigation. However, any tracking code created in this way will not be linked to an email project in Litmus and reports will only be available to view from the Analytics dashboard. This option is best reserved for any emails you may be building and testing outside of Litmus or if you plan to use a single tracking code to track multiple emails with a shared template.

Animated gif showing how to create a tracking code from the Tracking Code Manager in the Email Analytics dashboard

Either method will start the tracking code creation process. Follow the steps below to finish!

Tracking code setup

Step 1: Name the code and choose your email service provider (ESP). If you do not find your ESP listed, you can select Other from the dropdown. You can still collect opens, engagements, and email client data without selecting your ESP or including any merge tag from your email service provider.

Step 1 of tracking code creation set up your tracking code

Selecting your email service provider will automatically add the unique user ID (UUID) merge code of your ESP to the tracking code and will prefill the What’s the merge tag for your provider? box. If Litmus does not know the UUID merge code for your specific ESP, or if you select Other from the provider list, this box will be unlocked for you to manually enter your own merge tag that is not email-address related. The unique user ID will connect the other data we collect such as engagement and where your clients open your emails to a specific user without collecting subscriber's personally identifiable information (PII).

✏️ Note: To ensure no subscriber PII is stored by Litmus, any data that is collected via any merge tag that resembles an email address will be scrubbed and will not be stored or appear in Email Analytics reports. If you wish to use an alternative UUID merge tag to eliminate the need to store PII, you can select "Other" as the ESP and enter a non-email related merge tag.

Customize your tracking code

Step 2: Set an expiration date, email type, custom parameters, and tags.

Step 2 of tracking code creation, customize your code

Expiration Date: The expiration date defaults to 30 days from the date you create the tracking code. You can update this based on your campaign needs.
Email Type: Select Marketing or Transactional as the type for your email. As we enhance our reporting features, this will help you group similar emails.
Custom Parameters: Add as many custom parameters as you would like. You will need to separate each custom data tag with a plus sign (+) after each tag.
- Example: *|CAMPAIGN_UID|*+custom-data1+custom-data-2+custom-data-3
Tags: Add tags to make your emails easy to find and sort.

✏️ Reminder: To ensure no subscriber personally identifiable information (PII) is stored by Litmus, any data that is collected via any merge tag that resembles an email address will be scrubbed and will not be stored and will not appear in Email Analytics reports.

Add the tracking code snippet to your email

Once you've configured your tracking code, add it to your email. Best practice is to add your tracking code just before the ending body tag </body> of your email. Send a test email to the address Litmus provides to validate that your code has been placed correctly.

Step 3 of tracking code creation test your tracking code box

✏️ Note: Litmus looks through your email headers to find the @trackthislist.com email address and associate that email from your Email Analytics campaign. We have found that certain ESPs will "spoof" the To:, CC:, and BCC: fields to some data that isn’t the actual address that you are trying to send to. You may need to change your ESP preferences to send to the email address you enter in or contact your ESP to change this setting for you.

Collecting stats and viewing reports

Once you send your campaign you’ll begin to see your stats appear within Litmus. It may take a little while from the time your subscriber opens the email before your graphs and data update inside your report.

If only a few people have opened your email, the data is likely to be quite skewed. Therefore, allow a little time for your recipients to begin opening your message before you try to interpret your Email Analytics stats. Stats typically update 5-15 minutes after the opens have been made.