How to avoid false email click and open data from anti-spam bots?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 15 Jun 2025
Updated 19 Aug 2025
6 min read
Dealing with skewed email open and click data from anti-spam bots is a challenge many marketers face. These automated systems, often deployed by internet service providers (ISPs) and email security vendors, pre-scan emails for malicious content by opening them and clicking links. While this is crucial for protecting recipients, it can severely inflate your engagement metrics, leading to inaccurate campaign analysis and flawed segmentation.
The impact isn't just about vanity metrics, it affects strategic decisions. If your automation programs are set to move contacts based on clicks or opens, bots can trigger these actions prematurely, pulling legitimate subscribers out of sequences they should still be in. Understanding how to identify and mitigate these false positives is essential for maintaining clean data and effective email marketing strategies.
Why anti-spam bots skew your email metrics
The primary reason for inflated metrics is the proactive scanning performed by email security systems. These systems simulate user behavior to detect threats before emails reach the inbox. They open emails, click on links, and sometimes even navigate linked pages to identify phishing attempts, malware, and spam. This process, while beneficial for security, registers as a genuine engagement in your email service provider (ESP) reports.
Mailbox providers and corporate security solutions (like Barracuda Email Security Service) employ these sophisticated techniques. They operate at a rapid pace, often within seconds or minutes of an email being sent, and can originate from a wide range of IP addresses, making them difficult to distinguish from human interaction without deep analysis.
Beyond security scans, some bots may also subscribe to lists via vulnerable forms, leading to further false engagements. This can lead to issues not just with metrics, but also with your sender reputation if these bots trigger spam complaints or invalid bounces. Identifying these false positives is the first step toward accurate reporting and effective campaign management.
Identifying bot activity in your email reports
Spotting bot activity often involves looking for patterns that deviate from typical human behavior. While it's not an exact science, several indicators can help you identify artificial email opens and clicks.
Timing anomalies: Bots often click on all links in an email within a very short timeframe after delivery, sometimes even before a human recipient could reasonably open and process the content.
IP address patterns: Repetitive clicks from the same or similar IP ranges, particularly those associated with known security vendors or data centers, are strong indicators of bot activity.
Engagement without conversion: Bots click links but rarely complete downstream actions like form submissions, purchases, or prolonged website visits. Cross-reference your ESP's click data with your website analytics.
Multiple clicks on a single link: While a human might click a link multiple times, a bot might do so in a highly unnatural, rapid sequence, especially if it's scanning all tracked links.
Some ESPs offer built-in features to filter out or flag suspected bot activity, but their effectiveness can vary. Manually reviewing IP address lookups or correlating with public lists of known security scanner IPs can also help, though this can be time-consuming for large volumes of data.
Strategic mitigation methods for accurate data
While completely eliminating bot interactions is challenging, there are several strategies you can employ to minimize their impact and gain more accurate insights from your email marketing data.
IP exclusion lists: Many ESPs allow you to exclude specific IP addresses or ranges from your reporting. Compile a list of known bot and security scanner IPs from your data and external sources, then add them to your ESP's exclusion settings. This is a common method for filtering anti-spam software clicks.
Time-based filtering: Implement logic in your automation flows to account for rapid-fire clicks. For example, if a click occurs within the first few seconds of an email being sent, consider it a potential bot click and exclude it from engagement triggers. Some platforms allow you to set delays before registering an engagement.
Honeypot links: Embed an invisible link in your email that only bots would click (e.g., hidden via CSS). If this link is clicked, you can flag the recipient as a bot and exclude them from future reporting or segmentation. This helps minimize bot clicks in email marketing.
For sign-up forms, consider implementing CAPTCHA or honeypot fields to prevent bot sign-ups that can further skew your data. Double opt-in is also an effective barrier against artificial subscribers. While these solutions are for sign-up forms, they reduce future bot interactions with your emails.
Before mitigation
High reported open and click rates, but low actual conversions on your website.
Automation sequences incorrectly triggering for non-human interactions.
Difficulty in identifying true subscriber engagement and interest.
After mitigation
More accurate open and click metrics, reflecting genuine human engagement.
Automation flows are triggered by real user actions, improving efficiency.
Better understanding of subscriber behavior and campaign effectiveness.
Refining your email marketing data
Even with mitigation efforts, some bot activity might still slip through. The key is to refine your data analysis to account for it. This involves looking beyond surface-level metrics and diving deeper into user behavior.
Consider implementing advanced segmentation within your ESP or by exporting data. Segment your audience based on engagement patterns, distinguishing between rapid, multiple clicks and more deliberate, single clicks. Focus on metrics that indicate deeper engagement, such as form submissions, downloads, or time spent on landing pages, rather than solely relying on clicks and opens. This approach allows you to protect your email campaigns from bot clicks and gain more meaningful insights.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Implement a double opt-in process for all new email sign-ups to confirm human interaction.
Regularly review your email click data for suspicious patterns, such as multiple clicks within seconds.
Segment your audience based on actual engagement beyond just opens and clicks, focusing on conversions.
Collaborate with your ESP to understand their bot filtering capabilities and how to leverage them effectively.
Common pitfalls
Relying solely on reported open and click rates for performance evaluation, without accounting for bot activity.
Manually reviewing every suspicious IP address, which is time-consuming and unsustainable for large lists.
Allowing automation flows to be triggered by bot clicks, leading to incorrect customer journeys.
Not understanding the specific types of anti-spam bots affecting your campaigns and their behaviors.
Expert tips
Cross-reference your email metrics with website analytics to gauge true engagement and conversions.
Maintain an updated list of known security IPs and proactively exclude them from your reports where possible.
Consider unique identifiers or pixel-based tracking to better differentiate between human and bot activity.
Look for external resources or communities that share updated information on bot behaviors and IP ranges.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says that if you get the raw data, you can make an educated guess based on when the open or click occurred. If all the clicks are within a few seconds of send, it is probably a bot.
2019-12-10 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks notes that she manually reviewed IP addresses using data studio exports, but it was too time consuming for daily emails.
2019-12-10 - Email Geeks
Gaining clearer insights from your email data
While anti-spam bots pose a persistent challenge to accurate email marketing metrics, proactive strategies can significantly reduce their impact. By identifying typical bot behavior, implementing filtering mechanisms, and refining your data analysis, you can gain a clearer picture of your audience's true engagement.
This ongoing effort not only ensures more reliable reporting but also helps maintain the integrity of your email lists and the effectiveness of your automated campaigns. Staying informed about the latest bot behaviors and leveraging available tools will be key to your long-term success in email deliverability.
