Why is the click activity concentrated on a single link and from Amazon EC2 IPs?

The concentration of clicks on a single link from Amazon EC2 IPs primarily indicates automated security scanning or link pre-fetching by email service providers or corporate security systems. These systems proactively follow links to check for malware or phishing threats before the email reaches the recipient, leading to inflated click counts on particular links.

What do dual clicks with different user agents signify?

The dual clicks (e.g., Linux and Windows user agents) occurring milliseconds apart are a strong sign of advanced security scanners. Many security solutions perform checks from multiple operating systems and browser environments to ensure comprehensive threat detection for any linked content.

Do these automated clicks negatively affect my sender reputation or deliverability?

While it can inflate your click-through rates, this type of bot activity from security scanners generally does not negatively impact your sender reputation directly. It indicates that recipients' inboxes are well-protected. However, it can skew your analytics, making it harder to discern genuine user engagement from automated actions.

How can I identify and filter out these automated clicks from my campaign data?

You can identify bot clicks by analyzing IP addresses (often from data centers), user agents (generic or multiple per click), and click timing (rapid, clustered clicks). Many email service providers offer tools to detect and segment these clicks , allowing you to adjust your campaign metrics for more accurate reporting.

What could cause unusual click activity concentrated on a single link in an email campaign, primarily from Amazon EC2 IPs? - Troubleshooting - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

Discovering unusual click activity in an email campaign, especially when it’s concentrated on a single link and originates primarily from

Amazon EC2 IPs, can be puzzling. It throws off campaign metrics and makes it difficult to gauge true engagement. The peculiar aspect of these clicks, such as occurring in pairs milliseconds apart with different user agents (Linux and Windows), points towards a specific set of automated behaviors rather than malicious intent.

I've encountered this scenario before, and it's almost always related to how email service providers or corporate security systems scan incoming emails. These systems proactively click links to check for malware, phishing attempts, and other security threats before the email ever reaches the recipient’s inbox or when the recipient opens the email.

The fact that these clicks originate from

Amazon EC2 IPs (Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud) is a strong indicator of automated systems. Amazon EC2 is a widely used cloud computing platform, and many email security vendors, proxy services, and even email providers host their infrastructure there. This allows them to scale their scanning operations efficiently.

Understanding email security scans and proxy services

When you observe two clicks milliseconds apart with differing user agents like Linux and Windows, this behavior is a hallmark of an advanced security scanning process. Many security solutions perform checks from multiple environments to ensure comprehensive threat detection. For example, a single click from a user might trigger several automated clicks as the security system analyzes the linked content for any suspicious elements or redirects.

Major email providers, including

Google and

Microsoft, extensively use these types of security features. For

Gmail users, particularly, their Safe Browsing and link pre-fetching mechanisms can generate numerous clicks that appear to be from genuine users, even though they are automated processes. This is why you primarily see it for

Gmail contactsand other Google-hosted domains.

Understanding email security scanning

Email security systems, often hosted in cloud environments like

Amazon EC2, act as intermediaries. When an email is received, or sometimes even when it’s opened, these systems will automatically follow links within the email to check the destination for malicious content. This pre-fetching is designed to protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats. It’s a common and necessary security measure, but it does inflate click metrics.

Example bot user agentsHTTP

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.110 Safari/537.36
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/96.0.4664.110 Safari/537.36

Investigating bot activity and false positives

The concentration of clicks on a single, long-standing help page link, despite it being unchanged for years, is intriguing. It's possible that this specific link's structure, domain, or even its commonality within your emails triggers a more aggressive or frequent scanning behavior from these services. While it might seem odd for a benign link, security systems are often configured to be highly cautious of all links.

Identifying and handling these suspicious bot clicks is crucial for accurate campaign analysis. Since these are often long-standing subscribers, their actual engagement behavior might be masked by the automated activity. It's not uncommon for legitimate subscribers to also have their emails routed through these security systems, leading to these types of false positive clicks.

Characteristics of bot clicks

IP addresses: Often from data centers, cloud providers like Amazon EC2, Google, or Microsoft Azure.
User agents: Generic or headless browser strings, often showing multiple operating systems or browser versions for a single click instance.
Click timing: Rapid clicks, often within milliseconds of each other, from the same recipient, or immediately after an email is sent to that recipient.
Geographic concentration: Clicks originating from locations far from the recipient's usual location or known IP ranges.

Characteristics of genuine clicks

IP addresses: Typically residential or business IPs, consistent with the recipient's location.
User agents: Reflect a single, common browser and operating system, matching a typical user's setup.
Click timing: More organic, with natural delays between opens and clicks, and single clicks per link per user session.
Engagement patterns: Clicks are often part of a broader engagement with the email, such as scrolling or reading other content.

When you encounter such behavior, especially for existing, engaged subscribers, it is typically a sign that their email accounts are protected by these security or bot filtering services. These services operate transparently to the end-user but can significantly inflate your click-through rates (CTR) and skew your understanding of campaign performance. It's not necessarily a negative reflection on your campaign, but rather an indication of the robust security measures in place by ISPs and corporate networks.

Impact on metrics and data analysis

To accurately assess your email campaign performance, it is vital to identify and mitigate the impact of these bot clicks. While filtering out every automated click might be challenging, recognizing the patterns (like Amazon EC2 IPs, rapid dual clicks, and specific user agents) helps in segmenting your data more effectively.

I recommend you analyze your click data more deeply, looking for the tell-tale signs of automated activity. This includes examining the raw log files or detailed reports from your Email Service Provider (ESP) that include IP addresses and user agents. Some ESPs also offer built-in features to detect and segment bot clicks.

While these clicks might seem like a deliverability problem, they are usually a result of recipients' security settings. Your actual deliverability (in terms of emails reaching the inbox) might not be affected, but your engagement metrics will be. Focus on genuine user engagement signals, such as conversions after clicks, to get a clearer picture of your campaign success. Don't forget that

Yahoo and

Google are increasingly using these methods, so you're likely to see this behavior more often.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Actively segment your email data to differentiate between bot clicks and genuine user engagement for more accurate reporting.

Regularly review your email service provider’s analytics for patterns that might indicate automated activity.

Prioritize email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to build sender trust and reduce security scanning.

Common pitfalls

Misinterpreting high click rates from bot activity as genuine engagement, leading to skewed campaign performance assessments.

Ignoring bot clicks, which can affect future deliverability by misleading ISPs about subscriber interest.

Over-optimizing campaigns based on inflated click metrics, diverting resources from actual engagement drivers.

Expert tips

Set up custom tracking parameters for links that are heavily targeted by bots to gain deeper insights into their behavior.

Collaborate with your ESP to understand their methods for identifying and filtering out bot-generated clicks.

Analyze bot click data for any potential security vulnerabilities, even if the primary cause is benign scanning.

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says the first step in troubleshooting unusual click activity is always to examine the IP addresses where the clicks originate. Identifying data center IPs, particularly those from cloud providers like Amazon EC2, is a strong indicator of automated security services.

2023-02-10 - Email Geeks

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that clicks primarily from Amazon EC2 IPs, especially when combined with dual clicks and varying user agents, strongly suggest a third-party threat monitoring or filtering service. These services often pre-fetch links to scan for malicious content.

2023-02-10 - Email Geeks

Key takeaways

The unusual click activity concentrated on a single link, primarily from

Amazon EC2 IPs, is a common symptom of advanced email security measures. These automated clicks, while inflating metrics, are generally benign and indicate that email providers and corporate networks are diligently protecting their users.

For email marketers, understanding these patterns is key to accurate data analysis and strategic planning. By distinguishing genuine engagement from automated activity, you can ensure your optimization efforts are based on actual subscriber behavior and maintain a healthy sender reputation. Continue to monitor these trends, as email security landscapes are constantly evolving.