Lesson
France & UK | Email marketing | Engagement
France and the UK take a stand on email pixel tracking
France and the UK are tightening their approach to email tracking. The real opportunity is not to replace one metric with another, but to build more direct and meaningful engagement.
By Leslie Berton22 July 20265 min
Different regulators, the same direction
France has introduced dedicated guidance on tracking pixels in emails. The UK reaches a similar destination through broader guidance on tracking technologies under PECR.
The routes are not identical. But both point towards greater transparency, meaningful consent and more control for the people being tracked.
The broader marketing lesson matters more than the regulatory detail: marketing is being pushed away from passive surveillance and towards explicit permission and genuine engagement.
Reframe the question
The usual question
“How do we measure engagement now?”
The better question
“How do we build trust and real engagement with our leads and customers?”
A genuine exchange with the people we want to reach.
A community instead of a database.
Conversations instead of campaigns.
What marketers should do differently
Instead of tracking opens
Encourage replies.
End every email with one genuine question.
Instead of celebrating clicks
Start conversations.
Share a point of view people want to respond to.
Instead of optimising for attribution
Optimise for connection.
Look at whether people return, reply, refer others or begin conversations.
Instead of sending another newsletter
Build a community.
Feature customer perspectives. Respond to readers. Connect people facing similar challenges. Create discussions, not broadcasts.
Replace the dashboard
From
- How many people opened it?
- How many clicked?
To
- How many replied?
- How many forwarded it?
- How many mentioned it to a colleague?
- How many came back next week?
- How many shared their own experience?
- How many would notice if you disappeared?
Attention is becoming more valuable
The irony is hard to ignore.
AI is making content cheaper to produce while privacy regulation is making attention harder to measure.
The harder attention becomes to measure, the more valuable it becomes to deserve.
The companies that win will not be the ones that find another way to track people.
They will be the ones people choose to hear from.
And that has always been a better metric than an open rate.
Sources
For the regulatory detail, refer to the regulators’ guidance. This article is a marketing lesson, not legal advice.