Hi
I'm currently building a mailshot system. I have put a web bug into the bottom of the email template so I can track email opens, I've also got all the links in the emails going via a redirect page so I can also track those.
I came across a website the other day
http://fingerprintapp.com/ that offers the service of showing you the MAUs that are being used to view your emails. All you have to do once you have signed up is start a new campaign and they give you a HTML snippet of an < img > tag with a .gif in followed by a bit of querystring i.e. open.gif?12345somecodehere
. So as far as I can tell they are able to detect MUAs from a normal HTTP request for that particular image, the querystring stuff is obviously just so they can identify my particular mailshot.
I have been examining what I can get from the request.servervariables array in ASP when the request for my webbug comes in from an MUA. I get some strange results from both the server variables and the MSWC.BrowserType object . For example, when I open the email in outlook 2003 it all reports as IE7, also if I open it in gmail in firefox the request still appears as IE7.
Am I on the right lines here? The fingerprint app surely can't have access to more information than I do in a HTTP request. Do I need a better browscap.ini ?? or is it something completely different.
Thanks in advance.
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