Read time analytics show how long recipients spend reading your internal emails sent through Outlook. This feature tracks whether emails were glanced at, skimmed, or fully read.
Important: Read time is only available for Outlook users. This feature is not available to Gmail customers due to technical limitations with Google's email platform.
What Read Time Measures
Read time data categorizes recipient engagement into three levels:
| Engagement Level | Time Spent | What It Means |
| Glanced | 1-3 seconds | Recipient briefly opened the email |
| Skimmed | 3-9 seconds | Recipient quickly reviewed the content |
| Read | 9+ seconds | Recipient spent time engaging with the email |
Note: Read times are aggregate totals, not unique per recipient or device.
How Read Time Tracking Works
Read time tracking activates when recipients open your email on these supported email clients:
- Classic Outlook
- Outlook for Mac
- Outlook on iOS
Unsupported clients: If a recipient opens your email on a client or device that's not supported, read time calculation is skipped. ContactMonkey only tracks read time on clients that can reliably provide accurate data.
Tracking Process:
- When a recipient opens your email in a supported client, the timer starts
- When they navigate to a different email or close the message, the timer stops
- The total time is categorized into glanced, skimmed, or read
Accessing Read Time Data
- Click Emails at the top of your dashboard
- Click Sent and select your desired email to open its campaign overview
- Scroll to the Read Time section
Using Read Time to Improve Engagement
Read time analytics help you:
- Identify effective content: Compare read times across different email types to see what resonates with your audience.
- Optimize send timing: Use read time alongside the engagement distribution timeline to identify when employees have time to fully read emails, not just open them.
- Measure content value: Track whether recipients are engaging deeply with your newsletters or just scanning them.
- Refine your strategy: Test different content formats, lengths, and structures to increase read time percentages.