Summary
Artificial email opens and clicks, often generated by spam filters or security solutions, can significantly skew your engagement metrics, making it challenging to assess true subscriber interaction. These automated actions are a byproduct of email security protocols designed to pre-scan emails for malicious content before they reach the recipient's inbox. Identifying these non-human interactions is crucial for accurate reporting and effective campaign optimization. Understanding the characteristics of these artificial engagements can help marketers refine their analytical approaches and focus on genuine subscriber behavior. Learn more about how to accurately measure email open rates and avoid being misled by inflated data.
Key findings
- Inflated metrics: Spam filters and security gateways often pre-click links and open emails to scan for malicious content, leading to artificially high open and click rates.
- Timestamp anomalies: A key indicator is opens and clicks occurring moments before, or simultaneously with, the email delivery event.
- Common culprits: Barracuda is frequently cited as a filter that engages in this behavior. Other major providers like Google and Microsoft also employ similar techniques for security.
- Bot patterns: Automated systems may click every link in an email within milliseconds or show consistently high (e.g., 95% or 100%) engagement across all emails sent to a specific address, indicating non-human activity.
Key considerations
- Data accuracy: Relying solely on reported open and click rates can lead to misinformed marketing decisions and inaccurate assessments of campaign performance.
- Identification methods: Analyze your logs for IP addresses associated with known security providers (e.g., Barracuda, AWS IP ranges for Barracuda services). Look for unusual click patterns, such as multiple clicks at the same timestamp.
- Client communication: Educate clients and stakeholders on the reality of bot activity to manage expectations regarding email engagement metrics.
- Strategic adjustment: Consider alternative metrics for engagement, such as conversion rates or actual website traffic generated from emails, to gain a more accurate understanding of campaign effectiveness. This helps avoid skewed perceptions of deliverability, as discussed in why your email deliverability rate is wrong.
What email marketers say
Email marketers frequently encounter the issue of artificial opens and clicks, expressing frustration over the distortion of their campaign metrics. This phenomenon makes it challenging to accurately assess subscriber engagement and optimize future email strategies. Many marketers have observed these automated interactions firsthand, particularly from security solutions like Barracuda, which can show opens and clicks even before an email is officially accepted by the recipient's server. This leads to a common struggle in differentiating between genuine human interaction and automated bot activity, impacting reporting and strategic decisions.
Key opinions
- Widespread problem: Many marketers confirm experiencing excessive opens and clicks, attributing them to spam filters and security systems.
- Barracuda's impact: Barracuda is frequently mentioned as a primary source of these artificial interactions, often occurring pre-delivery.
- Client skepticism: Clients sometimes question the validity of reported metrics, believing them to be artificially inflated by the sending party.
- Data distortion: The presence of bot clicks can significantly distort engagement data, making it hard to identify genuine subscriber interest and leading to inflated click rates.
Key considerations
- Timestamp analysis: Marketers should analyze email event timestamps, looking for opens and clicks that precede delivery timestamps as a strong indicator of bot activity.
- IP address investigation: Investigating IP addresses associated with suspicious activity can help identify known security vendors or data centers (e.g., AWS servers where Barracuda is hosted).
- Filtering strategies: Implement methods to filter out bot-generated engagement from reporting tools to get a clearer picture of human interaction. This can help in developing strategies to increase email click through rate from genuine subscribers.
- Educating clients: Be prepared to explain to clients how security measures by recipients can inflate metrics, backing up claims with technical data like timestamps.
A marketer from Email Geeks confirms observing excessive opens and clicks and attributes them to spam filters. While there is no direct documentation, this behavior is a known issue among deliverability professionals.
An email marketing expert from Iterable emphasizes that non-human interactions, such as opens and clicks, are caused by privacy tools or spam filters, not actual people. This is a common occurrence in email marketing.
What the experts say
Email deliverability experts consistently acknowledge the prevalence of automated opens and clicks, providing deeper insights into the mechanisms behind them. They confirm that security appliances and spam filters proactively scan emails, often mimicking user behavior to detect threats. This includes pre-clicking links and sometimes even interacting with headers like the List-Unsubscribe, which can affect metrics. Experts highlight that while some providers are more sophisticated in their bot behavior (e.g., Google avoiding List-Unsubscribe clicks), others, like Microsoft, may not be. This expert perspective underscores the need for senders to understand these behaviors to accurately interpret their email engagement data and avoid misjudging their sender reputation scores.
Key opinions
- Security measure: Automated clicks are primarily a security measure, where systems like Barracuda pre-scan emails for malicious content by clicking all links.
- Pre-delivery activity: Barracuda and similar filters are known to open and click links even before the email is fully accepted or delivered to the end-user's inbox.
- Provider variation: While Google's filters are generally considered sophisticated enough not to trigger List-Unsubscribe links, Microsoft's filters have been observed to do so, potentially leading to inadvertent unsubscribes.
- Identifying sources: IP ranges associated with AWS or specific MX records (e.g., *.ess.barracuda.com) can help in identifying bot-generated activity from these systems.
Key considerations
- Analyze IP data: Utilize IP address data from your email logs to pinpoint sources of automated clicks and opens. Specific ranges may indicate security vendors.
- Time correlation: Examine the timing of opens and clicks relative to delivery times. Interactions occurring almost instantaneously or before delivery are strong indicators of non-human activity.
- Understand filter logic: Be aware that different email service providers and spam filters have varying behaviors regarding pre-scanning and link engagement. This knowledge is key to understanding email deliverability issues.
- Adjust reporting: Factor in the presence of automated interactions when reporting on email campaign performance to avoid overstating engagement. A detailed discussion on Barracuda's behavior can be found on Word to the Wise.
An expert from Email Geeks indicates that it's challenging to find official documentation about spam filters generating opens and clicks, suggesting it's more of an industry-known issue than a formally documented one.
An expert from Word to the Wise confirms that Barracuda filters are known to click all links in emails, a behavior reported by numerous senders. This is part of their security scanning process.
What the documentation says
While specific, detailed documentation from email service providers or security vendors on their exact bot behavior is rare, industry insights and observed phenomena fill this gap. General documentation often explains that email gateways and security solutions employ techniques like link pre-fetching and sandbox analysis to protect users from malicious content. These processes inherently involve automated 'opens' and 'clicks' as part of their threat detection. Understanding these security-driven behaviors is essential for interpreting email analytics accurately and for recognizing why emails might be going to spam. This broader understanding helps clarify the rationale behind what appears to be artificial engagement.
Key findings
- Proactive scanning: Email security systems perform automated scans, including opening emails and clicking links, to identify malicious content before it reaches the recipient.
- Bot definition: Automated email clicks are instances where links are activated by a bot or automated system, not a human user, for security purposes.
- Metric inflation: This automated activity can artificially inflate email engagement metrics, making it difficult to gauge true human interaction.
- Comprehensive analysis: Bots examine subject lines, body, headers, and HTML code for suspicious elements, triggering clicks as part of their detection routine.
Key considerations
- Data interpretation: Marketers must account for bot activity when analyzing engagement reports to avoid misinterpreting campaign performance and ensure messages aren't going to spam.
- Focus on real engagement: Shift focus to downstream metrics like conversions or website visits to measure actual subscriber value, rather than relying heavily on opens and clicks.
- Industry trends: Stay informed about evolving email security practices, as new technologies may introduce different forms of automated interactions.
- Technical mitigation: While challenging, explore methods to identify and filter out bot activity in your analytics platforms, as outlined in technical solutions for deliverability.
Documentation from Iterable indicates that a non-human interaction refers to an email event, such as an open or click, caused by privacy tools or spam filters rather than an actual person, clarifying the source of artificial engagement.
The documentation from Badsender suggests creating links or buttons that are invisible to human users but detectable by bots. These 'robot-dedicated links' can be used as a strategy to identify automated interactions and distinguish them from genuine user clicks.
