Hi, I'm currently a sophomore interested in pursuing banking, so naturally, as the cycle is cracking along I have been sending my fair share of cold emails. I also happen to have an email tracker which lets me know how many times someone has opened my email and when the last time they opened it was. Recently, I've noticed that sometimes people open my emails upwards of five times but don't respond at all. How would y'all interpret this?
| +209 | VP Archetypes | 10 | 2s | |
| +117 | I DID IT | 27 | 12h | |
| +68 | Advice Needed - Making Meaningful Connections Post-College / In the Professional World | 12 | 20h | |
| +39 | Evercore PCA vs GS Coverage Group | 25 | 14h | |
| +39 | Deal Count vs Deal Size | 16 | 6h | |
| +38 | Worthwhile Purchases as an AN1 | 12 | 16h | |
| +34 | What’s it like working at Moelis? | 12 | 2d | |
| +25 | Investment Bank is Trying to Claw Back my Signing Bonus | 14 | 5s | |
| +24 | Greenhill PCA or BofA IBD Generalist in HK | 11 | 6h | |
| +23 | Any bankers working tonight? (Thanksgiving) | 12 | 13h |
Career Resources
Get instant access to lessons taught by experienced private equity pros and bulge bracket investment bankers including financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel Modeling.
1. How accurate is this tracker? Could it be giving you false positives?
2. When I'm hunting for a specific email from a client in my inbox, I'll often click through a bunch until I find it. Your email might just be one of the many clicks.
3. Mis-clicked on your email when meant to click on a different one.
couple things
- folks are busy. if they didn't delete your email, they probably click on it or "arrow" through it. I imagine superspeed or anther email software counts this as opening
- see point 1 about folks being busy. so either they wanted to respond and just got busy or read the note and don't have an affiliation or whatever it might be. don't take it personally it's a numbers game
- your email isn't cut and square. I've been getting so many emails that are in the "begging" tone. ex: would it be possible to maybe schedule some time if you have availability? it's too "if if if". ask hey if you have time would love to connect. simple and clean cut. This is what I like to see: 1 sentence that sums you up (school, year, activity (sports, club, something that makes you at least attempt to stand out). tell me why you want to talk to me and tie it back to something you either learned or are curious about.
- keep reaching out to folks. people will respond just be confident and word your emails like you deserve to have a seat at the table (not you're on the other window looking in).
Get rid of the email tracker. The only thing it’s doing is creating anxiety. It doesn’t matter if they open it or not - if they don’t respond, you’re going to send a follow up regardless. No point in wasting energy trying to think of which of the 1,000,000 reasons it could be why someone opened your email a few times.
Also this is purely anecdotal, but I’ve heard some people have software that detects when people use email trackers. I imagine that wouldn’t be a good look if it’s true. Haven’t looked into it much though so take that with a mound of salt.
Best of luck and stay sane
Usually when the emails includes a tracker, it shows a red x in the email, and when you go to the reply, Outlook lets you know there might be a tracker in the email. I don't know if thats firm-specific or simply an Outlook function. I don't care if you're tracking, but I can imagine that some people do (likely older, more senior bankers). And like the person above said, you're going to follow up anyway so whats the point.
Stop using trackers - it's cringe and most of the time is easy to discover by the receiver.
Corp dev
In maxime qui aliquam quos id hic delectus rem. Impedit iste et sint vero fugiat distinctio optio. Perferendis nesciunt dolorem ut iusto et. Non et molestiae quos odit.
Qui non praesentium sit. Eos magnam voluptatum repellendus quia id. Modi porro ut repellendus impedit et exercitationem quos.
Similique non reprehenderit suscipit eaque labore ipsum hic. Nesciunt totam nobis adipisci impedit eveniet dolorum odio. Pariatur quas ut temporibus. Et et non est nisi voluptatem excepturi.
Ut natus et et explicabo. Eaque aliquid vero non minima. Ex consequatur est voluptate placeat harum voluptate et.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...