What changed
On August 21, 2026, Amazon SES added open- and click-tracking override parameters to the `SendEmail` and `SendBulkEmail` APIs. Applications can now choose whether open tracking and click tracking are enabled for an individual send request, and those request-level values take precedence over the settings in the associated SES configuration set. Previously, teams that needed different tracking behavior had to maintain separate configuration sets for each combination. AWS says the new controls are available in every SES region and have no additional feature charge.
Why it matters
Email tracking is increasingly a consent and data-governance decision rather than a single account-wide analytics preference. A customer can be allowed to receive an operational or marketing message while open or click measurement is inappropriate for that recipient, jurisdiction or purpose. SES's new API surface moves that decision into the same application request that sends the email, which makes it much easier to derive tracking behavior from a consent record without creating and routing through a growing collection of configuration sets. The change does not decide which recipients legally require tracking to be disabled; builders still need their own consent model and policy logic.
Tracking can now follow the recipient rather than the configuration set
An application calling `SendEmail` or `SendBulkEmail` can specify open- and click-tracking behavior for that request. When supplied, the override wins over the tracking preference configured in the referenced configuration set. Teams can therefore keep common event destinations and other configuration-set behavior while changing measurement at send time.
The change removes configuration-set combinatorics
Before the override, an application that wanted open/click tracking on, open off/click on, open on/click off and both off could need multiple configuration sets or additional routing logic. Request-level parameters collapse those combinations into application data and reduce the risk that the wrong configuration set is selected for a recipient.
Consent logic still belongs to the application
AWS explicitly positions the feature as useful for recipient-level privacy and consent requirements such as GDPR and CNIL guidance, but SES does not determine the legal state itself. Builders need to store consent or policy attributes, evaluate them before sending, and pass the appropriate override rather than assuming geography alone defines the answer.
Open and click tracking should be treated independently
The API exposes the two measurement types separately. That matters because organizations may have different product, legal or analytical reasons for enabling click redirection while suppressing open pixels, or vice versa. Downstream reports also need to know that a missing open or click can now mean tracking was intentionally disabled.
Measurement coverage becomes a reporting dimension
Once request-level tracking varies by recipient, account-wide engagement metrics are no longer based on a uniformly measurable audience. Teams should preserve whether each send had tracking enabled so analysts do not interpret lower recorded opens or clicks as a behavioral decline when the measured population itself changed.