Want To Track Who Read Your Email? ToutApp?s Salesforce Integration Goes Live

ToutApp, the email productivity app that emerged as part of the 500Startups Summer Accelerator program last year, is rolling out a new feature that will let users track their emails right from within Salesforce. With the update, ToutApp customers will be able to see who viewed their emails, when they were viewed, where they were viewed, what the recipient clicked on, and how long they read the email.
Creepy? OK, maybe. But for serious CRM users, it?s kind of great, too.
If you haven?t heard of ToutApp before, a little background: the startup is attempting to address one of the most woefully overlooked pain points nearly everyone deals with today: email overload. To help speed up the process of creating and responding to email, the company launched its service last year which helps users create personalized email templates (aka ?canned responses?). After installation, the app digs into your email to identify the types of mass emails you send to help you build these templates.
After your templated emails are sent, you can track nearly everything that takes place with them in the recipient?s inbox: it?s the who, what, when, where and how long of email viewing. It then presents this in a live-updating feed within your preferred email client. While privacy advocates my find this a shocking invasion, I disagree. Privacy, shmivacy. There are real-world benefits to this sort of tracking across multiple industries.
In my (fantasy) world, here?s how ToutApp could improve my life dramatically: a PR person sends a pitch. I open it. Read it. Click the link. Close the link. Then return to reading more email. When the PR person doesn?t hear back, instead of sending out one of those ?just circling back? emails to determine interest, they already know I read the email and followed through by viewing the URL it included. If they still had to follow up, the response wouldn?t be a time-wasting ?hey, did you read my email?? email, but a more productive follow-on pitch containing different angles or i