Email Tracking Rules in France and Italy are changing: What B2B Marketers Need to Know
The short answer:
Email tracking rules in France and Italy are changing in 2026.
The key deadlines are 14 July 2026 for France and 28 October 2026 for Italy.
The changes affect how organisations use tracking technologies to identify whether an individual recipient has opened or interacted with an email. For B2B marketers and event organisers, this could mean reviewing consent processes, campaign segmentation and how email performance is measured.
The important point is that sending an email and tracking an individual recipient are not the same thing.
A contact may still be eligible to receive marketing communications, while individual tracking of their email behaviour may require a different approach.
What is changing with email tracking in France and Italy?
Data protection authorities in France and Italy have clarified their positions on tracking technologies used in emails.
Tracking pixels are commonly used to identify whether an email has been opened. Email marketing technology can also record whether an individual recipient clicked a link.
These technologies can create behavioural data linked to a specific person. The new regulatory direction places greater emphasis on transparency, user choice and consent when this type of individual tracking takes place.
The changes are relevant to B2B marketing as well as B2C communications. Organisations running international email campaigns should therefore review how recipients in different countries are tracked.
What are the 2026 email tracking deadlines?
The key compliance dates are:
- France: 14 July 2026
- Italy: 28 October 2026
Organisations sending email campaigns to contacts in these markets should review their tracking setup before the relevant deadline.
The main areas to assess include how individual opens and clicks are tracked, whether tracking preferences are collected clearly, how consent is recorded and maintained, and which reports, automations or audience segments depend on individual email engagement data.
Can businesses still send marketing emails to French and Italian contacts?
Potentially, yes.
The rules around whether an organisation can send a marketing email are separate from the rules around tracking what an individual does after receiving it.
This distinction is particularly important for B2B marketers.
A contact may still be eligible to receive an event invitation, newsletter or other marketing communication, while individual open or click tracking is limited or requires additional consent.
In practical terms, marketers should avoid assuming that permission to send an email automatically includes permission to track the recipient’s behaviour.
What does this mean for email campaign reporting?
Campaign reporting may look different.
Most email marketing technology calculates overall open and click rates using individual tracking events. If tracking is disabled for part of an audience, those recipients may no longer contribute to the reported open or click rate.
As a result, an international campaign could contain both tracked and untracked audiences.
This does not make email reporting less valuable. It does mean that marketers need to understand what their reports represent before comparing performance across campaigns, countries or time periods.
Are open rates still a useful marketing metric?
Yes. Open rates remain a valuable indicator of email campaign performance, particularly when assessing subject line effectiveness, audience interest and engagement trends over time.
However, like any marketing metric, they are most useful when interpreted in context.
Privacy features, automated security scanning and other technical changes can affect how opens are recorded. The regulatory changes in France and Italy may also mean that some campaign audiences are tracked differently from others.
For B2B event marketers, this makes a broader measurement approach increasingly important. Open rates and click rates can still provide valuable insight, while website engagement, registration activity, content downloads, enquiries, qualified leads and attendance help show what happens further along the audience journey.
The key is not to move away from email metrics. It is to understand what each metric tells us.
Open rates can help indicate whether a campaign is capturing attention. Clicks can show active interest. Registrations, enquiries and other conversions can demonstrate whether that engagement is turning into meaningful action.
Together, these signals provide a more complete picture of campaign performance.
Will marketers need to change their website forms?
In some cases, organisations may need to review how their forms collect and record tracking preferences.
If individual email tracking depends on consent, marketers need a clear way to capture that choice and make the information available to the systems responsible for campaign delivery.
This can create additional complexity for international campaigns. Contacts in different countries, or contacts with different tracking preferences, may need to be handled differently.
The exact technical approach will depend on each organisation’s marketing technology, data structure and legal requirements.
What should B2B marketers do now?
Organisations running campaigns in France or Italy should review their email tracking and measurement processes before the relevant deadline.
The objective should not simply be to switch tracking on or off. The wider opportunity is to understand how tracking is currently used and which campaign metrics genuinely support better marketing decisions.
This means knowing where individual tracking takes place, understanding how consent is managed, reviewing which automations depend on email engagement data and ensuring that campaign reporting can adapt to audiences with different tracking preferences.
For event marketers, this is particularly important. Email remains one of the most powerful channels for driving awareness, engagement and registrations. A strong measurement framework should connect email performance with the actions that follow.
Frequently asked questions
Do the new email tracking requirements apply to B2B marketing?
The changes are relevant to B2B marketing because the regulatory focus is on the use of tracking technologies and individual behavioural data, not simply whether an email is B2B or B2C.
Can I still send emails if individual tracking is disabled?
Potentially, yes. The basis for sending a marketing email and the requirements for tracking an individual recipient are separate questions.
What is the deadline for France?
The key deadline is 14 July 2026.
What is the deadline for Italy?
The key deadline is 28 October 2026.
Are open rates still relevant?
Yes. Open rates remain a useful indicator of attention and campaign engagement. However, they should be interpreted alongside clicks, website activity, registrations, enquiries and other meaningful outcomes.
Does disabling email tracking stop website analytics?
Not necessarily. Email-level tracking and website analytics are separate processes. Organisations should review each according to the relevant consent, privacy and data protection requirements.
What should international B2B marketers focus on next?
Start by reviewing where individual email tracking takes place, how tracking preferences are recorded, whether audiences can be managed by country and consent status, and how campaign reporting may be affected.
A new chapter for email campaign measurement
The changes in France and Italy are part of a wider shift towards greater transparency and user control over digital tracking.
For marketers, this creates operational challenges, but also an opportunity to strengthen how campaign performance is measured.
Email marketing remains a critical part of the B2B event marketing mix. Open rates and click rates continue to provide useful signals, while registrations, attendance, enquiries and commercial outcomes help complete the picture.
The future is not about measuring less. It is about understanding the available data, respecting audience choices and using the right combination of signals to evaluate campaign performance.
At Kabloom, we are monitoring these developments closely and helping clients understand what changing privacy expectations could mean for international B2B event campaigns.
This article provides general information and does not constitute legal advice. Organisations should review their specific circumstances with their legal or data protection advisers.
A thought-piece written by Director of Marketing Operations and AI, Alejandro Hernández Alvarez