Guide
How to know whether a client actually read your proposal
You sent the proposal on Tuesday. It is Friday. Silence. The question is not whether they got it; it is whether they read it, how far, and whether anyone else was pulled in. An attachment cannot answer that. Email open tracking cannot either. A rendered share link can, within honest limits.
What each method can and cannot tell you
- An attachment: nothing. The file is a copy on their machine.
- Email open tracking: whether the mail client loaded a tracking image. Many clients block that, some prefetch it, and either way it says nothing about the document itself.
- A share link: whether the document was opened, how long it stayed open, how far it was scrolled, how many distinct people opened it, and, if the link asked for an email, who.
Read the signals in this order
- Opened at all. No open after three working days is a delivery or attention problem, not a content problem. Re-send with a one-line note.
- Time on the document. Under a minute on a twelve-page proposal is a skim. Several minutes, or two separate opens, means it was actually read.
- Scroll depth. If they stopped before the pricing section, the objection is upstream of price. If they reached the end, the objection is the price or the terms.
- Number of viewers. Two or three distinct viewers on a link you sent to one person means it was forwarded internally. That is usually good news: a decision is being made.
Turning it into a follow-up
Follow up on the signal, not the silence. "Saw you got as far as the timeline section; happy to walk through it" lands better than "checking in". If the document was never opened, change the channel rather than the message.
What scrolly shows
For every document and every link, scrolly shows opens, unique viewers, time spent and scroll depth in four buckets (0 to 25, 26 to 50, 51 to 75 and 76 to 100 percent), on a timeline by hour, day or week. On a link that verifies email, each viewer appears by their address. On a public or password link, a viewer is anonymous with a coarse city and country, never a raw IP address. You can also have scrolly email you when a link is opened, throttled so a re-read does not become ten emails.
Keep it honest
Tracking tells you what happened on the page, not what the reader thought. Use it to time and shape the follow-up, not to prosecute the client for skimming.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
- Does an email open mean they read the proposal?
- No. Email open tracking fires when an image loads in the mail client, which many clients now block or prefetch. It says nothing about the attachment. Only a rendered link can report time on the document and scroll depth.
- Can I see exactly which person opened it?
- Only if the link asked for their email. On an email-verified or allowlist link the viewer appears by email. On a public or password link you see an anonymous visitor with a coarse location. Send one link per person if you need certainty without the gate.
- What is a good scroll depth?
- There is no universal number. A proposal read to the pricing page at the end is the signal you want; a stop at 25 percent after thirty seconds usually means it was skimmed and parked. Compare against your own past proposals, not a benchmark.