Tracking conversions on a site is essential, most of the time you track on the completion of forms on the “thank you” page. Some sites have mailto links which open up blank e-mails, so how do you track clicks on such links?

Well take your standard link

<a href="mailto:info@domain.com">E-mail John</a>

Then add in the JavaScript tracking and ?subject=E-mail John to set a subject for the message (not essential but see later on).

<a href="mailto:info@domain.com?subject=E-mail John" onClick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview("/mailto/john");">E-mail John</a>

That page view “mailto/john” will start to appear as a page view on the top content section on Google Analytics

Next add that into a goal.

So at the end of the month you’ll be able to get a total of times the link has been clicked. Then check your inbox / ask the client how many e-mails they have received with the subject specified in the mailto link, in the example “E-mail John”. You then have the data work out of the conversion of clicks to e-mails received. E.g. 100 clicks 60 e-mails = 60% conversion.

If the conversion is low then you might want to change the link to go to a contact form, often people are more likely to fill out forms and some users won’t have their e-mail set up on Outlook which opens on the click of mailto links.