Track Who Opened Your Proposal With One Link Per Recipient (No CRM Needed)

To track who opened your proposal, upload one copy of the file per recipient at squish.to/upload and give each copy its own link name, like acme-maria and acme-dev. squish.to stats are per link, so each stats page then belongs to exactly one person. You see total opens, the last 7 days, a 14-day chart and recent opens with source and country, and you do not need an account or a CRM.

That is the whole method. The rest of this post covers the naming habit, how to read the numbers honestly, and where this approach stops being enough.

Why one shared link can't tell people apart

If you email one link to five people, every open lands in the same stats page. You can see that the proposal was opened and roughly where from, but not by whom. Worse, if one person forwards it, you will read that as interest from the original recipient.

One link per recipient fixes this without any tooling. The link itself is the identity. Whoever you sent acme-maria to is the person you are looking at.

How to set it up in about two minutes

  1. Export the proposal. A PDF, an image, or an HTML page all work. Uploads can be up to 10MB. If you build your proposals with an AI assistant, see how to host AI-generated HTML and track views.
  2. Open squish.to/upload and choose the file.
  3. Pick a custom link name. Use letters, numbers and hyphens, 3 to 30 characters. A pattern like company-person keeps things readable: globex-priya, globex-finance.
  4. Upload, copy the link, and send it to that one person.
  5. Repeat for the next recipient. Uploads are one file at a time, so budget a minute per person. For a proposal going to three or four stakeholders, that is a fair trade for knowing who is engaged.

Each upload also comes with a QR code, which is handy if you are handing a printed leave-behind to one specific person. There is more on that in every squish.to link now comes with a QR code.

A naming scheme that saves you later

You can look up any link's stats by entering its name at squish.to/stats, so the name is your index. Two habits help:

  • Put the company first. acme-maria and acme-dev sort together in your notes.
  • Note the link name next to the send. Paste it into your CRM note, your calendar event or a spreadsheet row. You do not need a CRM for this, but if you already have one, the link name is a good field to keep.

Uploaded files stay live for 30 days. If a deal runs longer, upload again and send a fresh link.

How to read each stats page

Each stats page shows total opens, opens in the last 7 days, your busiest day, a 14-day chart, and recent opens with the time, source and country. For one-recipient links, a few patterns are useful:

  • A second open, hours or days later. Usually a person coming back to it. This is a good moment to follow up.
  • An open from a new country or a new source. Often a forward. If you sent acme-maria and it shows up from a different country a day later, someone else is probably reading it.
  • An open within a second or two of sending. Often an email security tool or a chat app fetching a preview. It is not a human, so don't treat it as a signal.

What this method can't do

It is worth being straight about the limits, so you read the numbers correctly:

  • Stats are per link, not per person. The link name tells you who you sent it to, not who opened it. A forwarded link looks like its original recipient.
  • Link previews and email scanners can add opens that no human made. Treat the first open as a maybe and the second as a better sign.
  • There is no page-level tracking. squish.to counts opens. It does not tell you which pages were read or for how long.
  • Per-recipient uploads are manual. The squish.to API and MCP tool create short links for URLs. They don't upload files, so each file goes through the upload page.

If you need to verify identity, such as a login or email check before the file opens, or page-by-page engagement, that is the territory of dedicated document-tracking tools. For a quick "has anyone looked at this yet?" the one-link-per-recipient habit covers most of what a small team needs.

A simple follow-up rhythm

  1. Send the links individually, not in one group email.
  2. Check each stats page the next morning.
  3. Follow up with whoever has a repeat open, and give a gentle nudge to anyone with none.

For a longer walkthrough of the PDF flow, see send a PDF proposal as a link and see when it's opened.

Try it

Upload your next proposal at squish.to/upload and name the link after the person you're sending it to. You'll see the first open as soon as they tap it.

FAQ

How do I track who opened my proposal? Upload a separate copy of the proposal for each recipient, each with its own link name, and send each person only their own link. The stats page for each link then tells you about that one person.

Do I need a CRM or an account? No. squish.to uploads and stats work without signing up. Keep the link names in a spreadsheet or your own notes if you want a record.

Can squish.to tell me which page of the proposal was read? No. It counts opens and shows time, source and country, not page views or time spent.

What if the recipient forwards the link? You can't stop a link being forwarded. A new source or country on a one-recipient link is a good hint that it was passed along.

How long do uploaded proposals stay online? 30 days, and each file can be up to 10MB.