How can I prevent bot clicks from hurting my email reputation?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 23 Jun 2025
Updated 19 Aug 2025
7 min read
Email bot clicks are an increasingly common challenge for senders. They can significantly distort your engagement metrics, making it difficult to accurately assess campaign performance and audience behavior. While these automated clicks might seem harmless at first glance, their impact extends beyond misleading data, potentially damaging your email sender reputation.
The primary concern with bot clicks is their ability to inflate engagement rates artificially. Imagine your email shows a 20% click-through rate, but half of those clicks come from bots. This skewed data can lead to poor decision-making regarding content, segmentation, and overall email strategy.
More critically, bot activity can trigger spam filters and negatively affect your domain and IP reputation. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email providers like Gmail and Yahoo monitor sending behavior. Unusual click patterns, such as multiple links being clicked within milliseconds or repeated clicks from the same IP address, can signal suspicious activity, leading to lower inbox placement or even blacklisting. Understanding how anti-spam bots affect deliverability is the first step in addressing this issue.
Understanding bot clicks and their impact
Bot clicks often originate from security scanners, anti-spam software, or malicious actors. These systems automatically click every link in an email to check for malware, phishing attempts, or other security threats. While their intent may be protective, their automated actions can skew your data. Many of these clicks are from data centers or cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure, using various user agents, some of which might be outdated.
To identify these phantom clicks, look for patterns such as extremely fast clicks after delivery, multiple clicks on various links within a very short timeframe from a single IP address, or clicks originating from suspicious or commercial IP ranges. You might also notice old user agents being used by these bots. Filtering these out is crucial for accurate email reporting and deliverability.
Some organizations employ honeypot links, which are invisible links designed to catch bots. While useful for analytics, using invisible links might be seen as a spam indicator by some ISPs. It's generally better to provide actual content to these scanners rather than an empty page, as an empty page could potentially be interpreted negatively by some scoring systems. The key is to distinguish bot activity from genuine human engagement.
Proactive strategies for reputation protection
A fundamental step in preventing bot clicks from hurting your reputation is maintaining a clean and engaged email list. Bots can easily inflate your subscriber count with invalid or low-quality addresses, leading to higher bounce rates and spam trap hits. Implementing a double opt-in process for new sign-ups is highly effective at ensuring genuine subscribers. Regularly clean your list by removing inactive subscribers, bounced addresses, and suspected spam traps. This also helps with preventing bot sign-ups and suspicious contacts.
Proper email authentication is another cornerstone of a strong sender reputation. Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC helps verify your emails are legitimate and from your domain, reducing the chances of them being flagged as spam or spoofed. This tells mailbox providers that your emails are authentic and not coming from a malicious source. A comprehensive guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM can walk you through the setup.
Consider implementing a dedicated IP address if you send high volumes of email. This gives you more control over your sending reputation, as it won't be affected by the sending practices of others on a shared IP. However, a dedicated IP requires careful IP warming to build a positive sending history with ISPs. Regular blocklist checks are also essential to ensure your IP or domain hasn't been added to a blacklist (or blocklist).
Finally, focus on providing valuable and engaging content. High engagement rates from genuine subscribers tell ISPs that your emails are wanted, which positively impacts your reputation. Avoid spammy language, excessive capitalization, and too many links, which can trigger spam filters and lead to messages being sent to the spam folder. Consistent sending practices and relevant content are key to building a strong and trusted sender reputation.
Identifying and mitigating bot activity
To effectively mitigate the impact of bot clicks, you need robust detection and filtering mechanisms. The goal is to accurately identify and handle suspicious bot clicks in your marketing campaigns. This often involves analyzing click data beyond simple counts.
When you identify clicks from security scanners, it's best to allow them to access standard content. Blocking these requests or serving an empty page might negatively influence how your domain is perceived by these systems. Providing a normal page allows them to complete their scan without flagging your domain as suspicious. This approach is generally recommended over serving empty pages, which could confuse the scanning system or lead to repeated attempts from the bot.
While it's difficult to completely stop bots from clicking links, you can implement strategies to minimize their effect on your deliverability. Regularly reviewing your email domain reputation is a continuous process that involves vigilance and adaptation.
Typical bot click characteristics
Speed: Multiple clicks recorded within milliseconds or seconds after an email is sent.
Location: Clicks often originate from data centers, cloud providers, or known security scanning IP ranges.
User Agent: Use of generic, outdated, or suspicious user agents that don't correspond to common browsers.
Behavior: Clicking every link in an email, including unsubscribe links or hidden links.
Identifying bot clicks
Analyze IP Addresses: Look for clicks from known bot IP ranges or data centers.
Monitor Click Patterns: Identify multiple, rapid clicks from a single source.
Implement Honeypot Links:Use invisible links that only bots would click. Be cautious, as some ISPs flag this as spam.
Advanced monitoring and content best practices
Beyond the techniques mentioned, continuous monitoring and strategic adjustments are vital. Regularly review your email sending statistics, looking for anomalies in click rates, geographic distribution of clicks, and user agent strings. If you notice a sudden spike in clicks from unusual locations or non-human patterns, it's a strong indicator of bot activity.
Another powerful tool is to leverage DMARC reports from Google and Yahoo. These reports provide valuable insights into your email authentication status and potential issues that could be affecting your sender reputation. While they don't directly report bot clicks, consistent authentication failures (which bots can trigger by mismanaging links) can indicate underlying problems that need to be addressed.
Finally, ensure that your email content and design are optimized for deliverability. This includes maintaining a healthy text-to-image ratio, avoiding excessive links, and steering clear of URL shorteners, which can be seen as suspicious by spam filters. Clean, well-structured HTML also helps prevent your emails from being flagged. These practices, combined with proactive bot detection, will significantly protect your email reputation.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always use a double opt-in process for new subscribers to ensure genuine human engagement from the start.
Regularly clean your email lists by removing inactive subscribers and invalid addresses to improve overall list hygiene.
Implement strong email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to build trust with mailbox providers.
Monitor your email click data for anomalous patterns such as rapid, sequential clicks from single IP addresses.
Common pitfalls
Ignoring bot clicks, which can skew engagement metrics and lead to misinformed campaign decisions.
Serving empty pages to email scanners, potentially signaling negative intent to security systems.
Using invisible honeypot links without understanding that some ISPs may flag them as spam indicators.
Neglecting to monitor IP and user agent data, missing key indicators of automated click activity.
Expert tips
If security scanners are clicking links, display standard content to them rather than an empty page.
Segment out known bot traffic from your analytics to get a clearer picture of human engagement.
Consider a dedicated IP for high-volume sending and carefully manage its reputation.
Maintain strong content quality and consistent sending habits to foster a positive sender reputation.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says many phantom clicks originate from destination anti-spam software.
May 10, 2021 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says Barracuda and Palo Alto Networks scanners are common causes of rapid, multi-IP clicks.
May 10, 2021 - Email Geeks
Protecting your email reputation
Preventing bot clicks from hurting your email reputation requires a multi-faceted approach. It's not just about stopping the clicks themselves, but about understanding their source, mitigating their impact on your data, and ensuring your overall sending practices align with what ISPs and email providers expect. By maintaining a clean list, employing robust email authentication, and actively monitoring your sender performance, you can protect your reputation.
The key is to proactively manage your email program to reflect genuine engagement. This builds trust with mailbox providers, leading to better inbox placement and more accurate insights into your marketing efforts. Remember, a healthy sender reputation is built on consistent, trustworthy sending behavior, not just avoiding a blacklist (or blocklist).
Microsoft Azure, using various user agents, some of which might be outdated.
