RSS Readership Tracking

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Discussions about RSS (really simple syndication) have been popping up all over the place.  One of the majors pushes for RSS is a replacement for traditional email newsletters.  Some have commented that advertisers won?t want to run ads in RSS newsletters because they cannot track readership.

This isn?t necessarily the case.  Many email marketers currently insert what is known as a bug into an email.  This bug isn?t the type that will cause your software from not working.  Rather it is a bug in the spy sense of the word.  Marketers will insert a line of HTML into an email that may display a 1x1 white pixel.  The image name may look like this:  <img src="/spacer.gif?code=898237" / > or maybe even <img src="/spacer.asp?code=283874" />.

In one case log files can be mined to pull data.  In the other example, one in which I have employed, the image tag actually calls an ASP page.  The page parses the query string, inserts into the database and redirects the user to a .gif file. 

This same method can be used in RSS feeds.  Let me preface this by saying I am no RSS expert and have only tested this using RSS 2.0 using Newsgator and FeedDemon but this certainly is a starting point for further discussion. 

In the example here I use the ASP file method and have an image tag included: <img src="http://www.savedbyzero.org/mime.asp?rssID=1" border="0" >. The query string contains an id to let you know which rss file the user is reading.

If you add the channel http://www.savedbyzero.org/rss/tracking.xml to your newsfeeder I should record a hit when you view it.  To see if it worked visit: http://www.savedbyzero.org/rssvisits.asp and see if your IP address appears.

I would love to hear from people regarding this - if worked or did not, improvements, questions.  If you do reply with, “it didn’t work”, please let me know what newsreader you are using and leave an email address.

posted in: Coding, Marketing, Technology | Comments (0)