How can I identify and handle suspicious bot clicks in email marketing campaigns?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 3 Aug 2025
Updated 16 Aug 2025
8 min read
Email marketing campaigns often show clicks that don't seem to come from real human engagement. These are frequently generated by automated bots or security scanners, which can significantly skew your performance metrics, making it hard to assess true subscriber interest. Understanding how to differentiate between legitimate clicks and these automated interactions is crucial for accurate reporting and effective campaign optimization.
These bot clicks, while sometimes benign, can inflate your open and click-through rates, leading to misleading conclusions about your campaign's success. It is important to know that not all bot activity is malicious, as many are legitimate security checks performed by internet service providers (ISPs) or corporate email systems to protect users from phishing or malware.
The challenge lies in identifying these automated interactions and implementing strategies to filter them from your data without impacting your legitimate deliverability. By doing so, you can gain a clearer picture of your audience's actual engagement and make more informed decisions about your email strategy.
Identifying suspicious click patterns
Identifying suspicious bot click patterns begins with a careful analysis of your email campaign data. Automated clicks often exhibit specific behaviors that differ significantly from human interactions. Paying close attention to these anomalies can help you spot when bots are at play.
One common sign is an immediate surge of clicks right after an email is sent, sometimes even before a human recipient could reasonably open the email. This can manifest as numerous clicks from the same two B2B domains clicking the same link at the moment an email goes out. Furthermore, you might see clicks on every link within the email, including non-prominent links like logos or unsubscribe buttons, or even hidden pixels designed specifically to catch bot activity. These patterns are highly indicative of automated scanning rather than genuine engagement.
Another indicator is unusual IP addresses, especially those linked to data centers or known proxy services, or suspicious user agent strings that don't resemble standard browser or email client identifiers. The time-to-open field can also provide clues, with bot clicks often showing extremely short intervals between delivery and click. This suggests immediate automated scanning rather than a human reading and interacting with the email. Understanding these patterns is the first step in identifying bot behavior and taking corrective action.
Human interaction
Engagement timing: Opens and clicks are spread out over hours or days after sending, reflecting natural recipient behavior.
Click behavior: Primarily clicks on calls-to-action (CTAs) and relevant content, showing interest in the email's primary purpose.
IP addresses: Geographically diverse and typically associated with residential or commercial networks, not data centers.
User agent: Standard browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and common email clients like Outlook or Apple Mail.
Why bot clicks occur
Bot clicks are not always an indication of malicious activity. Many are generated by legitimate security measures designed to protect email recipients. Understanding these underlying causes is key to properly interpreting your data and avoiding unnecessary panic.
Primarily, these clicks come from security software, such as Google's or Yahoo's security filters, or corporate email gateways that scan incoming emails for malicious content. These systems automatically click or pre-fetch links to ensure they are safe before delivering the email to the recipient's inbox. This protective measure prevents phishing scams or malware from reaching users. For example, some ESPs, or email service providers, have specific features to help manage and filter these. For instance, Apple Mail's Privacy Protection also preloads content, which can appear as an open or click even if the user hasn't engaged.
Another source of automated clicks can be from web crawlers or data collection bots, although these are less common in direct email marketing contexts. The intent behind most email bot activity is primarily security-driven, aiming to safeguard the recipient rather than manipulate marketing metrics. This means that while they distort your data, they don't necessarily reflect poor sender reputation or deliverability issues. Knowing this helps you focus on adjusting your reporting and analysis rather than overreacting to what might seem like inflated numbers.
Strategies for managing bot activity
Once you can identify suspicious bot activity, the next step is to handle it effectively. The primary goal is to minimize its impact on your analytics and ensure your insights are based on genuine human engagement. You'll want to avoid false email click and open data from anti-spam bots to get a clearer picture of your campaign's performance.
One effective strategy is to implement honeypot links. These are links or pixels, often 1x1 pixels, hidden with CSS or placed in an inconspicuous part of your email (like the header or footer) that are invisible to human recipients but detectable by bots. If you see clicks on these hidden elements, you can safely assume it's machine-driven activity. This method helps you to identify and filter out bot clicks effectively without impacting deliverability. By monitoring these specific links, you can then exclude these contacts from your reporting or segment them as bot-driven interactions.
Additionally, many email service providers (ESPs) offer built-in features to detect and filter out bot activity, or at least provide raw data that allows you to perform this analysis yourself. Always check if your platform has options to automatically suppress these clicks from your reporting. For a comprehensive approach to minimizing bot clicks, consider segmenting your audience based on engagement patterns and IP data. This allows you to differentiate between genuinely engaged users and those whose interactions are predominantly machine-generated, providing a more accurate view of your campaign's true reach and impact.
Leveraging data and advanced techniques
Leveraging your data and available tools is critical for a deeper understanding of bot clicks and their impact. Beyond simply identifying them, you need to use this information to inform your broader email deliverability strategy and protect your sender reputation.
Regularly monitor your domain's health using tools like blocklist monitoring to ensure your sending IP or domain hasn't been unfairly listed due to bot activity, which can happen if bots trigger spam traps. Understanding what happens when your domain is on a blacklist can help you preemptively address potential issues. Additionally, DMARC reports can offer valuable insights into your email traffic, showing authentication results for various sources and helping you spot unusual sending patterns that might be linked to bot activity originating from unexpected locations.
Consider implementing advanced analytics within your email platform or a dedicated analytics tool to track specific metrics that help differentiate human from bot behavior. This includes analyzing the user-agent string to identify bot user agents, monitoring click-to-open times for rapid engagements, and cross-referencing click data with web analytics for corresponding landing page activity. Real human clicks usually result in some website interaction, whereas bot clicks often do not.
Time correlation: Do clicks occur immediately after sending, or are they spread out over a reasonable period?
Click location: Are clicks primarily on obvious CTAs, or on less noticeable links like the logo or footer?
IP segmentation: Can you identify clicks originating from known data centers or suspicious IP ranges?
Website behavior: Do clicks result in meaningful activity on your landing pages, such as form submissions or page views?
User agent analysis: Are user agents primarily standard browsers, or do they include generic or unknown strings?
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Use hidden links or pixels in your emails to identify and filter out automated bot clicks.
Segment your audience by behavior to differentiate between human engagement and machine activity.
Regularly review your email metrics for anomalies, such as sudden spikes in clicks or opens.
Utilize IP address and user-agent data to identify and quarantine suspicious interactions.
Common pitfalls
Overreacting to bot clicks and prematurely suppressing contacts who may still be legitimate leads.
Failing to account for bot activity, leading to inflated campaign metrics and inaccurate performance assessments.
Misinterpreting bot clicks as genuine engagement, which can lead to misguided marketing decisions.
Not using available data points like IP addresses or user agents to identify automated traffic effectively.
Expert tips
Consider that bot clicks can be a positive signal, indicating that email security systems are actively scanning and not immediately rejecting your mail.
Automated clicks are often a sign of healthy deliverability, as ISPs are vetting your emails rather than sending them straight to spam.
Implement a process to automatically quarantine or flag contacts identified as bots, excluding them from reporting but not necessarily from future sends.
Focus on the long-term engagement patterns rather than isolated click spikes to gauge true campaign success.
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks says they found 34 people from two B2B domains clicked the same link at the moment the email went out, which seemed suspicious.
2022-11-17 - Email Geeks
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks says it was likely security software or an ESP checking links automatically, or potentially a 'hive mind' of activity.
2022-11-17 - Email Geeks
Maintaining accurate email metrics
Effectively identifying and handling suspicious bot clicks is an ongoing process that requires vigilance and strategic adaptation. While these automated interactions can initially seem problematic because they skew metrics, they are often a sign that your emails are successfully reaching inboxes and undergoing security scans, which is a positive deliverability signal.
By understanding the behaviors of bot clicks, implementing identification methods like hidden links, and leveraging analytical tools, you can ensure your email marketing data accurately reflects human engagement. This precise data allows you to optimize your campaigns more effectively and maintain a strong sender reputation, ultimately driving better results from your email efforts.
like Outlook or Apple Mail.
Google's or 
Yahoo's security filters, or corporate email gateways that scan incoming emails for malicious content. These systems automatically click or pre-fetch links to ensure they are safe before delivering the email to the recipient's inbox. This protective measure prevents phishing scams or malware from reaching users. For example, some ESPs, or email service providers, have specific features to help manage and filter these. For instance, Apple Mail's Privacy Protection also preloads content, which can appear as an open or click even if the user hasn't engaged.
