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With all the hoopla over Google’s latest disclosure about image caching and use of a proxy—we thought we’d update everyone on what is happening and how it may effect MNB.

What has Google done?

I don’t know about you, but I’m not super geeky and all that chatter about proxy and cache is just confusing. Here it is in lay terms: Google keeps a copy of all the images in your newsletter on its server (for safety reasons) and replaces every image in every newsletter with the reference to the stored version on their server.

Basically, they are electing to do lots and lots of extra work to protect their clients. That is really cool, in my humble opinion.

How does it effect MNB

Easy answer is that it doesn’t hurt us in any way. There is a pretty sweet chance though that it can boost open rates for everyone. If Google continues with their action plan and displays images by default (because they store the image thus removing the threat of harm), then open rates should increase a bit. Don’t get too excited, that increase is limited to the subscribers with email hosted by Google (check your client usage reports). We’re definitely watching this aspect.

There are other mentions that total opens could be reduced as Google’s storing the image may only reflect as a single open for each subscriber. In all our recent tests, total opens and unique opens are not effected.

The wrap up

We’re having another day in paradise at MNB and not worrying one bit about opens (we are watching though). If you have questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me anytime: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).