This article is about how Gmail, Yahoo and Google-provided email service affects views and clicks reporting.
Views / Opens
Although a view is captured, Google & Yahoo may hide the real "User agent" and IP address thus not allowing us to determine the actual email client of the subscriber. This is what is reported:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.9.0.7) Gecko/2009021910 Firefox/3.0.7 (via ggpht.com GoogleImageProxy)
Or in case of Yahoo,
YahooMailProxy; https://help.yahoo.com/kb/yahoo-mail-proxy-SLN28749.html
No matter if you use Gmail as an app or in your browser Google will always return the above string for the recipient's user agent.
This is not the case when you are using Outlook. The email client will appear as MS Outlook.
Similarly we cannot know the real IP address of the subscriber because they are replaced with generic IPs from these providers.
This is why you see
Gmail (Google proxy in earlier versions)
and
Yahoo Mail Proxy in your email clients report.
Does it affects geolocation by opens/views?
Yes it does. Therefore geolocation reports based on views/opens will not be 100% accurate. They still however provide a very good indication.
Does it affect all Gmail users?
No, as stated above it only affects users opening their email using the web interface and the mobile Gmail app. People that use desktop email clients (such as Outlook) and non-Gmail mobile apps to access their Gmail accounts are not affected.
Does it affect geolocation by clicks?
No, the clicks and unique clicks reports will still show the real IP address of the subscriber. Therefore the IP address will be the real one and the geolocation reports will be accurate.
Does it affect the IP address captured at opt-in or opt-out?
No these IPs are the real ones. Since nuevoMailer v.9.5 you can do an advanced search, find and segment subscribers based on clicks/views city or country and opt-in city or country.
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