How To Track Email Open And Click In Laravel And PHP: A Guide To Email Tracking
Hello Friends,
In developer life, We deal with emails in our everyday life. We all want to know how we can track if an email is opened or not. If open Email is clicked by the user or not.
Today, I will tell you how we can track whether you open or clicked an email. I will tell you this with an example.
Let's start step by step.
1. Install Laravel
Our First Step is to install Laravel Project. To install Laravel we need to run the following command in the CLI or Terminal.
composer create-project laravel/laravel track-email
This command will install a fresh laravel project in the track-email folder.
2. Create Model and migration file
After Installing laravel we need to create the model and migration file to manage records. to create the model and migration file run the following command in the CLI or Terminal.
php artisan make:model Campaign -a
This command will create a Modal named Campaign and its related files. The output for this command will look like the below.
INFO Model [app/Models/Campaign.php] created successfully.
INFO Factory [database/factories/CampaignFactory.php] created successfully.
INFO Migration [database/migrations/2023_03_24_173335_create_campaigns_table.php] created successfully.
INFO Seeder [database/seeders/CampaignSeeder.php] created successfully.
INFO Request [app/Http/Requests/StoreCampaignRequest.php] created successfully.
INFO Request [app/Http/Requests/UpdateCampaignRequest.php] created successfully.
INFO Controller [app/Http/Controllers/CampaignController.php] created successfully.
INFO Policy [app/Policies/CampaignPolicy.php] created successfully.
After creating the files, We need to create the tables in the database. You can just copy and paste the below code.
<?php
use Illuminate\Database\Migrations\Migration;
use Illuminate\Database\Schema\Blueprint;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
return new class extends Migration
{
/**
* Run the migrations.
*/
public function up(): void
{
Schema::create('campaigns', function (Blueprint $table) {
$table->id();
$table->string('email');
$table->boolean('open')->default(0);
$table->boolean('click')->default(0);
$table->timestamps();
});
}
/**
* Reverse the migrations.
*/
public function down(): void
{
Schema::dropIfExists('campaigns');
}
};
Now, Run the migration command to create the tables.
php artisan migrate
3. Create Routes
I will create all the functionality in the route file. Because this is a basic example. You can edit the route file as below.
<?php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Route;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
/*
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Web Routes
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
| Here is where you can register web routes for your application. These
| routes are loaded by the RouteServiceProvider and all of them will
| be assigned to the "web" middleware group. Make something great!
|
*/
Route::get('/', function () {
$emails = \App\Models\Campaign::all();
foreach ($emails as $key => $email) {
Mail::to($email->email)->send(new \App\Mail\Campaign($email->email));
sleep(1000);
}
return view('mails.campaign');
})->name('send-mail');
Route::get('/images',function(){
logger(request()->all());
\DB::table('campaigns')->where('email',request()->email)->update(['open'=>1]);
return response()->file(public_path("1x1.png"));
})->name('track_open');
Route::get('/track-mail',function(){
\DB::table('campaigns')->where('email',request()->email)->update(['click'=>1]);
// return redirect(request()->url);
return redirect()->away(request()->url);
})->name('track_click');
There are 3 routes in the route file. Let me explain all the functions in detail.
send-mail
In the send-mail route, I am fetching all the records from the campaign table. I have created some demo records with the faker and factory. After that, I am using Mailer to send mail. I will explain the mail below in the detail.
track_open
We will use a trackable image in the mail. So, We can track if the mail is open or not. In the route, we will use a 1x1 px image in the email, So it will not affect the email layout and will help to track the mail. We will send the route response as the image.
track_click
In this route, We will track If any click is performed or not on the email. For this we will change all the Url In the Email will a specific URLs. So, Whenever any click is performed It will redirect to a common URL. Where we will perform our operations.
4. Create Mailable
For sending mail, I am using a mailable class to send the campaign email. To create a mailable run the following command in the CLI or Terminal.
php artisan make:mail Campaign
It will create a mailable class with the Campaign name. It will also create a blade file for the mail.
app/Mail/Campaign.php
The campaign blade file will look like below.
<?php
namespace App\Mail;
use Illuminate\Bus\Queueable;
use Illuminate\Contracts\Queue\ShouldQueue;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailable;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Content;
use Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Envelope;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
class Campaign extends Mailable
{
use Queueable, SerializesModels;
public $email;
/**
* Create a new message instance.
*/
public function __construct($email)
{
$this->email = $email;
}
/**
* Get the message envelope.
*/
public function envelope(): Envelope
{
return new Envelope(
subject: 'Campaign',
);
}
/**
* Get the message content definition.
*/
public function content(): Content
{
return new Content(
view: 'mails.campaign',
);
}
/**
* Get the attachments for the message.
*
* @return array<int, \Illuminate\Mail\Mailables\Attachment>
*/
public function attachments(): array
{
return [];
}
}
After this, We need to create a Blade file for the mail. The most important part of the blade file is to include an image file to track whether Mail is open or not.
Include Image in the Email
<img src="{{ route('track_open',['email' => $email]) }}">
We will include the image file with the route we create in the web.php file. We will also pass email in the URL email parameter. So, We can track which user had opened the email.
Once any email will open, we will fetch the record and mark the email as opened.
5. Replace href link in the email blade
Now, We need to replace the tag href link. We will include all the links in a custom URL. So, Whenever any user will click on any link in the email. Then user will be redirect to a specific URL. Where we will mark the email as clicked.
<a href=" {{ route('track_click',['url' => 'https://www.templatebench.com','email' => $email ]) }}" target="_blank">READ MORE</a>
We will pass the original Url and user email as the parameter in the route.
So, On click user will be first redirected to the track_click route. Where we will get the email and original URL. After marking the Email as a click. We will redirect the user to the original URL.
After doing all these steps. We can track email is opened or clicked event.
After all the steps, Our result may look something like this.
I hope this post will be helpful to you.
You can share your thought in the comments.
Thanks
Templatebench
We are Template bench. We love programming. We also love to share tips and tricks with you.