How to Track Emails in n8n Workflows

n8n is brilliant for building email automations. You can connect to any email provider, trigger sequences based on events, and scale your outreach without touching a line of code. But there's been one persistent gap: once an email leaves your workflow, you have no idea what happens to it.

That gap is what Mailpulse fills. In this tutorial, I'll walk you through adding full open and click tracking to any n8n email workflow. The whole process takes about ten minutes.

Prerequisites

Before we start, make sure you have:

• A running n8n instance (self-hosted or cloud)
• An existing workflow that sends emails (or we'll create one)
• A free Mailpulse account

Step 1: Install the Mailpulse Community Node

n8n supports community nodes, which are third-party integrations you can install directly into your instance. Mailpulse provides a dedicated node called n8n-nodes-mailpulse.

To install it:

1. Open your n8n instance and go to Settings > Community Nodes
2. Click Install a community node
3. Enter n8n-nodes-mailpulse and confirm
4. The node installs in seconds and is immediately available

You'll now see two new nodes in your node palette: Email Tracker and Email Sender.

Step 2: Create Your API Credentials

The Mailpulse node needs an API key to communicate with the tracking service. Here's how to generate one:

1. Log in to your Mailpulse dashboard
2. Go to Settings > API Keys
3. Click Create Key, give it a name like "n8n Production"
4. Copy the generated key immediately (it won't be shown again)

Back in n8n, you need to add these credentials:

1. Go to Credentials in the left sidebar
2. Click Add Credential and search for "Mailpulse"
3. Paste your API key and set the API URL to https://mailpulse-io.lyten.agency
4. Save the credential

Step 3: Add the Email Tracker Node to Your Workflow

This is where the tracking actually happens. The Email Tracker node sits between your data source and your email-sending node. It takes the email HTML as input, injects a tracking pixel, rewrites all links for click tracking, and passes the modified HTML to the next node.

Here's a typical workflow structure:

Trigger → Prepare Data → Email Tracker → Send Email (Gmail/SMTP/SendGrid)

To configure the Email Tracker node:

1. Drag the Email Tracker node onto your canvas
2. Connect it between your data preparation and your email-sending node
3. Select your Mailpulse credential
4. Map the required fields:
   • Recipient — the email address of the recipient
   • Subject — the email subject line
   • HTML Body — the full HTML content of your email
   • Campaign — the campaign name to group analytics

The node outputs the modified HTML with tracking already embedded. Your email-sending node just needs to use this modified HTML instead of the original.

Step 4: Send a Test Email

Before deploying your workflow, send a test email to yourself:

1. Click Execute Workflow in n8n
2. Check your inbox for the test email
3. Open the email and click a link
4. Head to your Mailpulse dashboard

Within seconds, you should see the open event and click event appear on your dashboard. The live activity feed shows events as they happen, so you'll see it in real time.

Step 5: Understanding Your Dashboard

Once emails start flowing, your Mailpulse dashboard becomes your command center. Here's what you'll see:

• Total emails tracked — how many emails have passed through the tracker
• Open rate — percentage of emails that were opened
• Click rate — percentage of opened emails where at least one link was clicked
• Engagement charts — daily trends for opens and clicks
• Top links — which links in your emails get the most clicks
• Geographic data — where your recipients are located
• Device breakdown — desktop vs. mobile, browsers, operating systems

All of this data updates in real time. There's no waiting for batch reports or daily aggregations.

Advanced: Using Webhooks for Real-Time Reactions

If you want your n8n workflow to react when someone opens or clicks, Mailpulse supports webhooks. You can configure a webhook endpoint in your Mailpulse settings that fires when specific events occur.

For example, you could build a workflow that:

1. Sends a sales proposal via email
2. Receives a webhook when the prospect opens the email
3. Sends a Slack notification to the sales team: "John opened the proposal"
4. If the prospect clicks the pricing link, automatically schedules a follow-up email

This turns email from a passive channel into an active trigger for your business processes.

Advanced: Custom Tracking Domains

By default, tracking links use the Mailpulse domain. For better deliverability and brand consistency, you can set up a custom tracking domain. This means your tracking links will use something like track.yourcompany.com instead of the default Mailpulse domain.

Setting this up requires adding a CNAME DNS record. The process is documented in your Mailpulse settings panel and takes about five minutes (plus DNS propagation time).

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Email Tracking

Organize with Campaigns

Create separate campaigns for different email types: newsletters, transactional emails, onboarding sequences. This keeps your analytics clean and lets you compare performance across categories.

Monitor Your Open Rate Trends

A single open rate number isn't very useful. What matters is the trend. If your open rate drops from 45% to 30% over a month, something changed — maybe your subject lines need work, or you're sending at the wrong time. Check out our guide on open rates for detailed strategies.

Use Click Data to Optimize Content

If nobody clicks your main CTA but everyone clicks a secondary link, your email layout might need restructuring. Click data tells you what your recipients actually care about, not what you think they should care about.

Wrapping Up

Adding email tracking to your n8n workflows doesn't require complex code or expensive infrastructure. With Mailpulse's community node, you get professional-grade tracking that integrates directly into the workflow builder you already use.

The free plan includes 3,000 tracked emails per month, which is plenty for testing and small-scale automations. As your volume grows, you can upgrade to access features like custom domains, extended data retention, and advanced analytics.

Create your free account and add tracking to your first workflow today.