How do automated opens and clicks affect my email metrics?

Bots can significantly inflate your email open and click rates, leading to inaccurate performance reports. This skewed data can misinform your marketing decisions, as you might misinterpret artificial engagement as genuine subscriber interest. It can also obscure the true effectiveness of your campaigns.

How can I identify automated opens and clicks?

You can identify bot activity by looking for specific patterns in your email reports. Common indicators include unusual user agent strings (e.g., python-requests , AHC ) and IP addresses originating from cloud hosting providers like AWS, GCP, or Azure. Additionally, rapid, simultaneous opens or clicks shortly after email delivery often indicate bot activity.

Can automated opens and clicks harm my sender reputation?

While legitimate security scans are generally not detrimental, an excessive volume of suspicious bot clicks could potentially, albeit indirectly, impact your sender reputation over time. ISPs and email providers look at overall sending patterns. Maintaining clean and accurate data helps ensure your reputation remains strong and you avoid being placed on a blacklist (or blocklist).

Why are automated scripts and crawlers opening my emails, and how can I identify and exclude them from tracking? - Technical - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

Q: Why are automated scripts and crawlers opening my emails?

Automated scripts and crawlers, often called email bots, open emails primarily for security scanning. They check links and content for malware, phishing attempts, and other threats before the email reaches the recipient's inbox. This pre-scanning is a common practice by ISPs, email clients, and corporate or educational organizations.

Q: Can I exclude automated opens and clicks from my tracking?

Yes, you can exclude automated activity from your tracking. The best approach is to filter your email analytics data based on identified user agent strings and IP ranges. Most email service providers offer options to segment or exclude this data from your reports, ensuring your metrics reflect genuine human engagement.

It can be perplexing to see your email campaign reports filled with opens and clicks from automated scripts and crawlers, especially when your goal is to measure true human engagement. You might notice unusual user agent strings like python-requests/2.19.1 or AHC/2.1 associated with these interactions. This phenomenon is a common challenge for email marketers and deliverability professionals alike, skewing valuable metrics and potentially leading to inaccurate insights.

These automated interactions are not necessarily malicious, though they can certainly interfere with your data accuracy. Often, they stem from legitimate security measures implemented by internet service providers (ISPs), email clients, and corporate or educational organizations. Their primary purpose is to safeguard recipients from harmful content, such as phishing attempts or malware, by pre-scanning links and attachments within incoming emails.

Understanding why these automated scripts and crawlers are opening your emails is the first step toward accurately interpreting your campaign performance. This guide will help you decipher these interactions, identify their sources, and implement strategies to exclude them from your tracking, ensuring your email metrics reflect genuine subscriber engagement.

Why automated scripts and crawlers open your emails

Automated scripts and crawlers interact with emails for several reasons, primarily focused on security and content validation. Mailbox providers and security vendors run these automated systems to protect their users. For example, a large portion of these bot clicks originate from security software designed to protect recipients from harmful links. The software automatically clicks on links within emails to assess their safety before the message even reaches the inbox.

Another common scenario involves email firewalls and advanced threat protection systems used by organizations, particularly educational institutions and corporations. These systems often proxy email content through their own servers to scan for viruses and other threats. This pre-scanning activity can trigger open and click tracking pixels before a human recipient ever views the email. For instance, AHC/2.1 is a user agent associated with services like SchoolMessenger SafeMail, which provides student email safety solutions for Google Apps and

Office 365.

The purpose of automated scanning

Automated email clicks are instances where a link within an email is activated not by a human user, but by an automated system. These bots are crucial for detecting phishing and malware before it can compromise user security. They help determine if links lead to legitimate websites, ensuring a safer email experience for recipients.

Impact on metrics

While beneficial for security, these automated interactions can significantly inflate your open and click rates, leading to inaccurate campaign analytics. This makes it challenging to gauge genuine subscriber engagement and optimize your email marketing strategies effectively.

Ultimately, these automated activities are a necessary part of the modern email ecosystem. While they present challenges for accurate tracking, their role in email security is critical for protecting users from threats. For more details on why these bot clicks occur, you can refer to insights on email bot clicks and their impact on newsletters.

How to identify automated opens and clicks

Identifying automated open and click activity in your email reports requires a keen eye for patterns and specific data points. The most immediate indicators often come from the user agent strings, as mentioned earlier. User agents like python-requests or AHC are clear signs of non-human interaction. Your email service provider (ESP) or analytics platform typically provides data on user agents and IP addresses associated with opens and clicks. Digging into these details is crucial for distinguishing between genuine and artificial engagement.

Another strong indicator is the origin IP address. Many security scanners and crawlers operate from cloud hosting providers such as

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), or Microsoft Azure. If you consistently see opens and clicks from these IP ranges, it’s highly probable they are automated. Normal end-users rarely open emails from IP addresses belonging to these cloud services. Identifying these patterns is key to understanding how ESPs distinguish human versus bot activity.

Human engagement

User agents: Typically include common browser names like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or known email client identifiers.
IP addresses: Residential ISPs or mobile network ranges, showing geographic diversity.
Activity patterns: Opens and clicks are spread out over time, not instantaneous, and reflect typical user behavior.

Automated activity

User agents: Often generic HTTP client names, security software identifiers, or blank values.
IP addresses: Predominantly from data centers and cloud providers like Google Cloud, Azure, or AWS.
Activity patterns: Rapid, simultaneous opens and clicks shortly after email delivery.

By examining these characteristics, you can gain a clearer picture of whether your reported opens and clicks are genuine or bot-generated. This discernment is crucial for an accurate assessment of your campaign’s true performance. You can delve deeper into identifying bot user agents in your click data to refine your analysis.

Strategies for excluding automated activity from tracking

Once you've identified common patterns of automated activity, the next step is to exclude this traffic from your tracking and reporting. The most effective method is to filter data based on the identified user agent strings and IP ranges. Most email service providers offer segmentation or filtering options within their analytics dashboards that allow you to exclude specific user agents or IP addresses. This helps to minimize the impact of bot clicks in email marketing for more accurate results.

For more advanced filtering, especially if your ESP has limitations, you might consider implementing custom scripts on your website's click tracking logic. This allows you to programmatically detect and ignore clicks from suspicious IPs or user agents before they are recorded in your analytics. This approach ensures that your campaign data accurately reflects human engagement, providing a cleaner view of your email marketing effectiveness.

Example of pseudo-code for excluding bot trafficjs

IF user_agent CONTAINS 'python-requests' OR user_agent CONTAINS 'AHC/2.1'
  OR ip_address IS IN ('AWS_IP_RANGE_1', 'AWS_IP_RANGE_2', 'GCP_IP_RANGE', ...)
THEN
  EXCLUDE FROM_TRACKING
ELSE
  RECORD_OPEN_CLICK
END IF

However, attempting to block these IPs at a network level could inadvertently impact email deliverability, as some firewalls might prevent emails from parsing if they can't access all content. The optimal strategy focuses on excluding the data from your reports, rather than trying to prevent the security scans themselves. By refining your tracking, you gain a more realistic understanding of subscriber engagement, which is vital for effective campaign optimization.

Impact on metrics and deliverability

The presence of inflated opens and clicks due to automated scripts can significantly skew your email marketing metrics. If your reports show high open or click-through rates that don't translate into actual conversions or website traffic, automated activity is likely the culprit. This inaccurate data can lead to misguided strategic decisions, as you might over-invest in campaigns that appear successful but aren't genuinely engaging your audience.

Furthermore, while security scans are generally benign, a large volume of bot clicks, especially those exhibiting suspicious behavior, could potentially impact your sender reputation. Though unlikely to lead to an immediate blocklist (or blacklist) listing, consistent anomalous activity can subtly influence how ISPs perceive your sending practices. It's important to understand how email blacklists (or blocklists) function to mitigate any potential negative effects.

Maintaining data integrity is crucial for effective email marketing. By actively identifying and excluding automated traffic, you gain a clearer, more accurate view of your true engagement. This allows you to make informed decisions, improve campaign optimization, and ultimately achieve better return on investment from your email efforts. Filtering bot activity is a proactive step to prevent bot clicks from harming your email reputation.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Regularly review your email campaign reports for unusual patterns in opens and clicks, focusing on user agent strings and IP addresses.

Segment your audience and analyze engagement across different recipient domains, as some organizations employ more aggressive scanning.

Implement filtering rules in your analytics or ESP to exclude known bot user agents and cloud service IP ranges from your reported metrics.

Focus on conversion metrics and website activity as primary indicators of campaign success, rather than solely relying on open and click rates.

Common pitfalls

Mistaking security scans for genuine engagement, leading to over-optimistic reporting and ineffective campaign adjustments.

Attempting to block bot-related IPs at the network level, which can unintentionally interfere with email delivery for legitimate recipients.

Ignoring bot activity, allowing skewed data to persist and undermine the accuracy of your email marketing performance analysis.

Failing to adapt your measurement strategies as new types of automated scanners emerge, always reacting instead of being proactive.

Expert tips

Use A/B testing to compare engagement metrics between segments with and without bot filtering to better understand their true impact.

Keep an eye on industry reports and forums for new bot patterns or specific user agents identified by other email professionals.

Consider engaging with your most engaged subscribers through other channels to validate email performance metrics.

Analyze time-to-click data to spot instantaneous clicks that are characteristic of automated scanners versus human interaction.

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that automated scripts are a common occurrence and are typically just part of system tasks.

July 1, 2021 - Email Geeks

Marketer view

Marketer from Email Geeks says that AHC/2.1 is linked to SchoolMessenger, and opens from AWS IP addresses are clearly non-human interactions.

July 1, 2021 - Email Geeks

Maintaining data integrity

Automated scripts and crawlers opening your emails are an inherent part of the modern email landscape, driven by essential security measures. While they can complicate the accuracy of your email marketing metrics, they are not insurmountable. By understanding their purpose, identifying their telltale signs like specific user agents and cloud-based IP addresses, and implementing smart filtering strategies, you can maintain the integrity of your campaign data. This enables you to focus on genuine human engagement and make truly informed decisions that drive your marketing success.