This new email-tracking feature gives salespeople NSA-like powers

Cirrus Insight, an app for integrating Salesforce with Gmail and Google Apps, announced today the launch of email tracking for Gmail.

Cirrus Insight email tracking allows users to receive real-time notifications when someone opens an email; view the time/date, location, and device on which email opens occurred; and log email tracking-information to the activity history in Salesforce.

“Knowing whether and when a prospect opens an email has powerful implications,” said Jason Hubbard, VP of marketing at Cirrus Insight, in a conversation with VentureBeat.

“If the email goes unopened, the salesperson knows to try a different approach — perhaps a different subject line or perhaps a phone call instead. If a prospect opens the email, the salesperson can seize the opportunity with a quick phone call to answer any questions and move the deal forward. Moreover, members of sales teams can learn from each other by seeing which email templates are effective and when prospects are most likely to open emails. The net result is a more productive and more effective sales team that can build closer relationships with customers and thereby close more deals.”

Email tracking has historically been the province of the marketing department, which has used tools like Marketo, Eloqua, ExactTarget, MailChimp, and other marketing automation and email platforms, says Hubbard. Cirrus Insight democratizes this technology by bringing it to the individual salesperson.

Cirrus Analytics allows users to track and report on emails, events, calls, tasks, leads, contacts, opportunities, cases, and more. Furthermore, it allows organizations to answer questions like: How many events with prospects did the sales team have last week? How many customer meetings are scheduled in Google Calendar for next week? How many new leads did we add from Gmail last month? How effective are our emails from Gmail? How effective are our Salesforce email templates?

All reports and dashboards are easily customizable to match the reporting needs of any organization.

The application and its new feature are useful both for enterprise and nonprofits, which can subscribe to the Cirrus Insight app at a 50 percent discount.

“Nonprofits can use email tracking to better understand their constituents and donors,” says Hubbard. “What emails are most appealing to donors?  What type of message draws the most volunteers? When do clients open emails and how can we maximize follow ups? To paraphrase Salesforce, nonprofits need to be ‘customer companies’ just like their for-profit counterparts.”

Email tracking is available today for all users of Cirrus Insight at no additional charge.

Laura Schaefer is an experienced freelancer whose work has appeared on Entrepreneur.com and Match.com.