Summary
Bot clicks are a persistent challenge in email marketing, often skewing engagement metrics such as open rates and click-through rates. These automated interactions, frequently originating from security scanners or proxy services like Microsoft (Outlook/Office 365) and Proofpoint, can make it difficult for marketers to distinguish genuine user engagement from automated activity. Identifying and mitigating their impact is crucial for accurate campaign analysis and effective deliverability strategies.
Key findings
- Automated engagement: Bot clicks are a common occurrence, driven by security features like link checking that pre-scan URLs in emails. This leads to inflated metrics that do not represent true human interaction.
- Common culprits: Email security solutions, particularly those associated with Microsoft Outlook/Office 365 environments and Proofpoint, are frequent sources of these automated clicks as they analyze links for malicious content.
- Pattern recognition: Bot activity often presents as rapid, simultaneous clicks on multiple links shortly after an email is sent. Understanding these patterns can help identify non-human engagement, as described by AWeber Community.
- Impact on metrics: Inflated click rates due to bot activity can obscure actual campaign performance, making it difficult to assess content effectiveness and audience engagement accurately.
Key considerations
- Data analysis: Thoroughly analyze click data, paying close attention to timestamps relative to email delivery and the specific links clicked. Unusual spikes or clicks on less prominent links may indicate bot activity. Learn more about identifying bot user agents.
- ESP capabilities: Consult with your email service provider (ESP) to understand their bot click filtering mechanisms and reporting adjustments. Many ESPs have built-in features to mitigate this issue. For more on this, check out how ESPs distinguish human vs. bot clicks.
- Behavioral traps: Consider implementing strategies like 'honeypot' links (invisible links only bots would click) to help differentiate bot traffic from human engagement. However, be cautious as this method can sometimes lead to unintended deliverability issues.
- Internal reporting: Adjust your internal reporting to account for known bot activity, providing stakeholders with more accurate insights into genuine campaign performance, rather than just raw numbers.
What email marketers say
Email marketers frequently encounter challenges with bot clicks inflating their email metrics. They often observe unusual spikes in open and click rates, particularly on images or less prominent links, leading to confusion about true campaign performance. The community discusses various approaches to identify these automated interactions and reconcile them with actual human engagement, often focusing on data analysis and communication with stakeholders.
Key opinions
- Metric inflation: Many marketers report experiencing sudden, uncharacteristic surges in click rates, particularly on elements like images, suggesting automated rather than human interaction.
- Identifying sources: Initial suspicions for bot activity often point to major email clients like Outlook/Office 365 or specific security vendors such as Proofpoint, which are known for pre-clicking links. This is a common challenge for those trying to filter bot clicks from newsletter reports.
- Data analysis for patterns: Marketers frequently find value in analyzing click patterns, specifically the time of click relative to email delivery, to discern between human and bot engagement.
- Honeypot links: Some marketers suggest using invisible 'honeypot' links (e.g., 1x1 pixel GIFs) to explicitly track bot clicks, although caution is advised regarding potential deliverability impacts. This method helps identify and filter out bot clicks effectively.
- Reporting adjustments: A key challenge for marketers is explaining these inflated metrics to management and adjusting reports to reflect actual user engagement accurately. This involves segmenting bot activity from genuine clicks.
Key considerations
- Domain investigation: Investigate the domains associated with unusual clicks, as certain domains (e.g., mail.protection.outlook.com) are strong indicators of security scanning activity.
- ESP collaboration: Reach out to your ESP's support to understand their data processing, particularly if they perform pre-reporting modifications to filter bot clicks.
- Segmenting bot traffic: When using methods like invisible links, ensure you have a clear strategy to segment and exclude these bot clicks from your primary engagement metrics for accurate reporting, as highlighted by YOCTO Agency.
- Communicating impact: Prepare to explain to stakeholders that apparent drops in metrics (after filtering bot activity) are due to more accurate data representation, not a decline in genuine engagement.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks notes an unusual spike in open and click rates, observing that the first two images in an email had over 300 clicks while subsequent images had fewer than 5. They question if this disparity indicates bot activity.
Marketer view
An email marketer from Email Geeks suspects that Outlook/Office 365 or Proofpoint might be the source of their inflated email click rates, indicating a common struggle with identifying these automated actors.
What the experts say
Experts in email deliverability acknowledge that bot clicks are an unavoidable aspect of modern email ecosystems, largely due to sophisticated link checking and security scanning mechanisms employed by internet service providers (ISPs) and email security vendors. While it's impossible to eliminate these automated interactions entirely, experts focus on strategies to identify them and mitigate their impact on reporting accuracy.
Key opinions
- Link checking prevalence: Automated link checking, often performed by services like Proofpoint behind domains such as mail.protection.outlook.com, is a very common cause of bot clicks.
- Inescapable reality: Experts confirm that it is generally impossible to completely remove the numbers generated by bot clicks from your overall email metrics.
- Behavioral analysis: Strategies for identifying bot activity involve analyzing the timing of clicks relative to email delivery and observing if all links within an email are clicked almost simultaneously. Salesforce Trailhead (via the Trailblazer Community) suggests looking into timestamp patterns and behavioral analysis.
- Honeypot caution: While invisible links (honeypots) can help track bots, experts advise caution due to potential negative consequences for inbox placement and overall deliverability.
Key considerations
- Deep dive into data: Analyze your raw click data for anomalies. Look for very rapid clicks or clicks occurring before the email could realistically be opened by a human. This is key for identifying suspicious bot clicks.
- Consult your ESP: Engage with your email service provider to understand their processes for filtering bot clicks and how they present cleaned data in their reports. This collaboration can help you minimize bot clicks.
- Adjust expectations: Recognize that some level of automated click activity is inevitable. Focus on understanding the impact and adjusting your metrics and reporting to focus on genuine human engagement.
- Avoid hidden elements: Exercise caution when adding hidden elements or links to emails specifically for bot detection, as these can be flagged by spam filters and negatively affect your deliverability.
Expert view
Email expert from Email Geeks explains that many organizations utilize Proofpoint services behind mail.protection.outlook.com, indicating that bot clicks are very likely the result of this common link-checking practice.
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks states definitively that it is generally not possible to entirely remove the numbers attributed to bot clicks from email reports, as automated link checking is a fundamental and widespread practice.
What the documentation says
Official documentation and industry guides frequently outline the nature of bot clicks, primarily attributing them to pre-scanning by security software. These resources often provide methods for identifying bot activity and advise on how to adjust data analysis to account for these non-human interactions, emphasizing accurate measurement over the complete elimination of bot influence.
Key findings
- Automated security: Documentation confirms that a significant portion of bot clicks result from automated security systems scanning links for malware and phishing threats before an email reaches the inbox, or as it's being opened.
- Skewed metrics: These automated interactions inflate click rates, providing a misleading view of actual recipient engagement and potentially impacting campaign optimization decisions.
- Identification techniques: Common identification methods include analyzing rapid click speeds, clicks from known data center IP ranges, and unusual click patterns where all links are engaged simultaneously.
- Platform filtering: Many email marketing platforms (ESPs) and CRM systems (e.g., Dynamics 365 Customer Insights) now offer built-in features to detect and filter out bot clicks, improving data accuracy.
Key considerations
- Enable filtering options: Leverage any bot click filtering capabilities provided by your email platform or marketing automation system to automatically adjust your reported metrics.
- Adjust automation triggers: If your workflows rely on click-based automation, consider adjusting triggers to account for bot activity, or use multiple engagement signals to ensure genuine user interest. This helps accurately measure email engagement.
- IP address blocking: For persistent or malicious bot activity, blocking suspicious IP addresses identified in your click data can reduce their impact, but this requires careful monitoring.
- Behavioral analysis: Go beyond simple click counts by analyzing user behavior after the click (e.g., website activity) to confirm genuine engagement, a method supported by Salesforce Trailhead.
Technical article
Salesforce Trailhead documentation suggests that strategies such as examining timestamp patterns and embedding hidden links are effective starting points for identifying bot activity within email campaigns.
Technical article
Cyberimpact's documentation advises that by limiting the number of links in an email to only the most important ones, marketers can reduce the chances of encountering numerous bot clicks and improve metric accuracy.
Related resources
9 resources
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