How can I prevent bot clicks from hurting my email reputation?

Key findings

• Automated activity: Many quick clicks (e.g., 10+ links within a second, or within 100ms) often originate from non-human sources like spam filters or security scanners, not genuine user engagement.
• Source identification: These bot clicks frequently come from known infrastructure, such as Microsoft Azure, and may use outdated user agents.
• Metric distortion: Bot clicks inflate open and click-through rates, leading to inaccurate performance assessment and potentially misleading A/B test results. Our guide on identifying artificial email opens and clicks provides more detail on this.
• Reputation impact: While not always clear, bot interactions (especially with empty or problematic landing pages) could negatively influence an inbox provider's scoring system, potentially affecting your sender reputation and deliverability.

Key considerations

• Monitor and analyze: Regularly cross-check your email service provider (ESP) analytics with website tracking tools to identify discrepancies caused by bots. Look for unusual patterns, such as multiple clicks from the same IP address or very fast sequential clicks.
• Display standard content: Instead of an empty page, consider displaying regular content to bot scanners. This may reduce repeated link retries and provide a more positive signal to security systems. More tips on this can be found in our article on combating spam filter and bot clicks.
• Filter out bot activity: Utilize known bot IP addresses and user agents to exclude their activity from your email reporting. This ensures your metrics accurately reflect human engagement.
• Implement CAPTCHA: For email sign-up forms, consider adding CAPTCHA challenges to prevent bots from entering your email list in the first place, thus reducing future bot clicks. You can learn more about this on ActiveCampaign's blog.

Key opinions

• Phantom clicks observed: Marketers frequently report a huge uptick in web traffic after sending campaigns, which they can attribute to bots, often involving numerous clicks on multiple links within seconds.
• Retry behavior: Some bots not only click rapidly but also retry the same URLs tens or hundreds of times, exacerbating data noise.
• Source of clicks: Much of this click traffic originates from specific infrastructure like Microsoft Azure, often using very old user agents, and is confirmed not to be legitimate human interaction.
• Honeypot link effectiveness: Some marketers use honeypot links for analytics to confirm bot activity, finding that these links largely correlate with the observed phantom clicks. Our article on identifying and preventing spambot traffic details similar strategies.

Key considerations

• Content response: Marketers consider whether responding with a standard, albeit unsupported, page might be better than an empty page to reduce continuous link retries from bots.
• Anti-spam software involvement: It's noted that anti-spam or anti-virus software at the destination can be a primary cause of these rapid, automated clicks. This is especially true for systems like Barracuda and Palo Alto Networks, which scan for malicious content.
• List protection: Protecting the email list from bots by implementing double opt-in and CAPTCHA on signup forms is a key strategy for maintaining list hygiene. Our guide on preventing nefarious sign-ups offers more on this.
• Distinguishing traffic: Employing strategies like making the first link in the text version of an email untrackable or using single pixels/nbsp; to segment phantom clicks can help distinguish bot traffic from human engagement. More information on protecting your email list can be found on the MailSoar blog.

Key opinions

• Security scanner origin: Automated clicks are typically generated by anti-spam or anti-virus software at the destination, which actively scans emails for malicious content by following links.
• Common culprits: Barracuda is frequently cited as a primary source of these rapid, automated clicks. Palo Alto Networks also employs a scanner with similar, though distinct, activity patterns.
• Reputation ambiguity: The impact on reputation when bots encounter an empty or unsupported page is unclear, though it's speculated that it could be a negative signal for scoring systems that evaluate content safety.
• Invisible links: Experts warn that some large internet service providers (ISPs) consider the inclusion of "invisible" links in email content as a potential spam indicator, which can adversely affect deliverability.

Key considerations

• Displaying standard content: It's generally recommended to display standard content to these scanners, rather than an empty page. This approach is believed to reduce the frequency of link retry behavior from bots.
• Excluding from reporting: Once standard content is served, using known IP addresses and user agents associated with these scanners can help exclude their activity from reporting, ensuring more accurate email metrics. This is essential for properly interpreting email campaign performance.
• Phishing protection: Many organizations implement link scanning to protect their customers' mailboxes, primarily to prevent accidental clicks on phishing emails or other malicious content. More context on how certain spam filters (like Barracuda) impact email metrics can be found in our detailed guide here.
• Proactive bot prevention: To prevent bots from getting onto your email lists in the first place, implement robust measures such as double opt-in and CAPTCHA. Learn more about protecting your email list from bots.

Key findings

• Automated engagement: Bots often navigate links within emails, generating clicks that are indistinguishable from genuine user engagement. This leads to inflated click-through rates and skewed reporting.
• Impact on metrics: Bot clicks directly impact metric reporting, making it difficult for marketers to accurately assess campaign success and optimize future strategies. This distortion affects core performance indicators.
• Spam filter interaction: Emails must pass through recipients' spam filters, which are tools that often perform automated link scanning. These scans can register as clicks, further complicating metric analysis.
• List hygiene importance: Maintaining a clean email list is fundamental for improving sender reputation and deliverability. This includes preventing bot sign-ups and regularly identifying and filtering out bot-generated email addresses. Our guide on email list hygiene provides a detailed approach.

Key considerations

• Double opt-in and authentication: Implementing double opt-in is a key strategy to block spam bots from entering email lists. Proper email authentication, such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, also contributes to better deliverability and reduces suspicious activity. For more information on authentication, see our simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.
• CAPTCHA integration: Incorporating CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA into signup forms is a widely recommended method to filter out bot activity and protect forms from automated submissions. This ensures only human users can join your lists.
• Monitor unusual activity: Continuously monitoring and analyzing unusual activity, such as sudden spikes in clicks or opens from suspicious IP ranges, is crucial for identifying and addressing bot interference. The AWS Messaging and Targeting Blog discusses optimizing deliverability through list management and monitoring.
• User-centric approach: Optimizing email deliverability requires a user-centric approach to list management. This involves not only preventing bots but also ensuring good engagement from human subscribers.