Granicus’ Policies and Practices Related to Email Tracking
At Granicus, we take data privacy very seriously. The 4,000 organizations that use our software and services can rest assured knowing that our solutions follow the highest security standards available.
In 2016, we made the investment to become the first cloud communications provider to be FedRAMP authorized for our govDelivery solution. This product and its many features are also ISO 27001 and GDPR compliant.
Like all other leading email service providers, our email communications software provides our customers with the ability to monitor email open and click rates of subscribers. This visibility allows organizations to evaluate the impact of their strategic communications, and make improvements to ensure critical community or program information is reaching their residents effectively. The analytics available in govDelivery performance reports can also help our customers provide more personalized information relevant to a citizen’s specific areas of interest from their local, state or federal government organizations.
A few things to know:
1.) Analytics Help Match Subscribers with Relevant Communications
As email best practices continue to advance, so have reporting mechanisms. In today’s modern digital landscape, communicators are able to better segment their audiences and communicate to provide more relevant information. Analytics like open rates and click rates also help track overall subscriber engagement, which helps inform communications strategies (for example, if engagement is on the rise, that tells a communicator that their content, timing, and delivery is working). All major email service providers provide these metrics for users.
2.) Tracking is Enabled by Pixels and Link Shims
As is industry standard, Granicus uses pixels to track open rates and link shims to track click rates. Once an email is opened and an image containing a pixel is downloaded, the image sends a message to the server indicating that the email has been opened. When a link is clicked within a govDelivery bulletin, govDelivery will redirect the user to the destination link after ensuring it is the original link that the author intended, and simultaneously will send a message to the server indicating that the link has been clicked. These two features are how users are able to access all of the analytics and automation features when recipients engage with their emails.
3.) Privacy Policies Can Keep You Informed
A privacy policy is a statement or legal document that discloses the ways that a party gathers, uses, discloses and manages a customer or client’s data.
Granicus’ privacy policies identify the ways that engagement data is tracked and used. These privacy policies are distributed to all clients and citizens who subscribe to receive their information. Here are links to Granicus’ primary privacy policies:
- Granicus Subscriber Policy
- Granicus Privacy Policy
- Granicus Admin Privacy Statement
- Govloop Privacy Policy
4.) Email Tracking Can Be Turned Off
Granicus’ solutions are configurable, and activity capture (email opens, clicks, etc.) can be turned off in govDelivery. To deactivate this feature in your account, all you need to do is simply contact Granicus’ customer support at support@granicus.com.
Two Features Currently in Test Environments (and Coming Soon to govDelivery):
- HTTPs: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. At Granicus, we are committed to the security of our products and work to ensure we are leveraging the right tools to protect our customers’ data as if it were our own. For this reason, we’ve been working to make HTTPS the default protocol for all tracking links and have configured this function for our govDelivery customers in a phased approach. In the coming weeks, we will be making this the default for all tracking links in govDelivery.
- Updates to Encryption: A core email system upgrade will launch in Q1-2019 to update our email encryption. Granicus is currently testing TLS, a newer encryption method that will be enabled as the default encryption going forward. The govDelivery system already uses TLS to send to a subset of email domains.
Stay tuned for more information regarding these email system updates. If you have questions regarding Granicus’ email tracking policies, contact our customer support team at support@granicus.com.