Bot signups significantly degrade email deliverability by harming sender reputation through increased bounces, spam complaints, and reduced engagement. Preventative methods involve a layered approach: CAPTCHAs and honeypots on signup forms to identify and block automated submissions; double or confirmed opt-in to verify subscriber authenticity; email validation tools to remove invalid or risky addresses; monitoring signup sources for suspicious patterns; regular list cleaning to remove unengaged subscribers; IP warm-up for new IPs; and leveraging ESPs with built-in bot detection. Google reCAPTCHA analyzes user behavior, Cloudflare offers bot management tools, OWASP recommends rate limiting account creation, and Microsoft highlights the importance of sender reputation. The impact of bot signups depends on their ratio to genuine users, necessitating proactive and adaptive strategies.
15 marketer opinions
Bot signups significantly harm email deliverability by lowering sender reputation through increased bounce rates, spam complaints, and reduced engagement. Strategies to prevent bot signups include implementing CAPTCHA, using honeypots, employing double or confirmed opt-in processes, utilizing email validation tools, monitoring signup sources for suspicious activity, practicing regular list cleaning, and warming up new IPs gradually. Competent ESPs often provide built-in bot detection, and reCAPTCHA helps distinguish between human and bot interactions, while lead validation software assesses input validity. A multi-layered approach combining technical solutions and proactive list management is crucial.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor recommends gradually warming up new IPs by sending emails in increasing volumes to engaged subscribers. This helps establish a positive sending reputation with ISPs and improves deliverability.
6 May 2025 - Campaign Monitor
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that bot signups can have a huge impact on deliverability, depending on the ratio of bot accounts to genuinely engaged users. The impact might not be immediately apparent, and it could take time before the accumulation of illegitimate addresses is noticed.
1 Jun 2024 - Email Geeks
3 expert opinions
Bot signups negatively impact email deliverability by damaging sender reputation due to increased spam complaints and low engagement, signaling spamming practices to ISPs. Combining honeypots and CAPTCHAs on signup forms effectively identifies and blocks automated submissions. Implementing a double opt-in process verifies subscriber authenticity, ensuring only genuine users are added to the mailing list, further enhancing deliverability.
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource responds by sharing that high rates of bot signups damage sender reputation because they lead to increased spam complaints and low engagement, which ISPs interpret as signs of spamming practices and subsequently hurt email deliverability.
7 Sep 2024 - Spam Resource
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that implementing a double opt-in process can help verify the authenticity of new subscribers, ensuring only genuine users are added to the mailing list and improving deliverability rates by reducing bot signups.
17 Mar 2023 - Word to the Wise
4 technical articles
Bot signups negatively impact email deliverability by harming sender reputation through increased bounces and spam complaints. To protect against this, documentation from Google reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare, OWASP, and Microsoft emphasizes the use of advanced techniques. reCAPTCHA analyzes user behavior to differentiate bots from humans, Cloudflare's bot management tools provide bot detection and mitigation, OWASP advises securing account creation with rate limiting, and Microsoft highlights maintaining a positive sender reputation to avoid deliverability issues.
Technical article
Documentation from Cloudflare shares Cloudflare's bot management tools provide advanced bot detection and mitigation techniques. This service can identify and block malicious bots attempting to sign up for email lists.
7 Sep 2021 - Cloudflare
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft explains maintaining a positive sender reputation which is key for deliverability. Bot signups harm sender reputation due to bounces and spam complaints.
10 Aug 2022 - Microsoft
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