Open tracking vs. measuring replies only

Open tracking vs. measuring replies only
Popular advice: "Track opens so you know who's interested and when to follow up."
Myth. Open tracking is a pixel, and pixels are half-broken — Apple Mail pre-fetches them, privacy proxies fire them, and corporate scanners open everything before a human ever does. You'll chase "hot" leads who never saw the email and ignore real readers with images off. Worse, the tracking pixel itself tanks deliverability. The only signal that survived the last five years of privacy changes is a reply. It's not who opened, it's who answered — measure the thing that can't be faked.