Summary
Email bot clicks, often originating from security software and corporate firewalls, can significantly skew newsletter engagement reports by artificially inflating click-through rates. Identifying these non-human interactions is crucial for accurate data analysis and effective campaign optimization. While complete elimination from reports can be challenging, marketers can employ various strategies to pinpoint and account for these automated clicks, ensuring a clearer picture of genuine subscriber engagement.
Key findings
- Instantaneous Clicks: Bot activity frequently manifests as clicks occurring within milliseconds or very soon after an email is sent or opened, often simultaneously across multiple links.
- Comprehensive Link Clicks: A common indicator is when all links within an email, including social media icons or the unsubscribe link, are clicked rapidly and without human logic.
- Absence of Follow-up Engagement: Unlike human clicks that typically lead to subsequent website activity and conversions, bot clicks usually register a click but do not result in further interaction on the landing page.
- Distinctive Metadata: Analyzing user-agent strings and IP addresses in click data can reveal patterns from known security scanners, corporate firewalls, or unusual browser types, signaling automated activity.
- Inflated CTOR with Low Conversions: An unusually high Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR) that is not correlated with a corresponding increase in conversions or website engagement strongly suggests the presence of bot clicks.
Key considerations
- Data Analysis Focus: Prioritize analyzing raw click data, including timestamps, user-agents, and IP addresses, to detect suspicious patterns rather than relying solely on aggregated reports.
- Leverage ESP Capabilities: Utilize any built-in bot filtering features offered by your Email Service Provider (ESP) or implement custom exclusion rules based on identified bot patterns.
- Prioritize Deeper Metrics: Shift focus beyond raw click rates to more meaningful engagement metrics like conversions, website visits, and actual subscriber actions, which are less susceptible to bot interference.
- Source of Automated Clicks: Recognize that many automated clicks stem from legitimate security scanners employed by corporate firewalls and spam filters, which pre-fetch links to ensure safety.
- Ongoing Interpretation: Understand that while filtering is important, completely eliminating all bot clicks can be difficult. The goal is to interpret data accurately by recognizing bot patterns and adjusting reporting expectations accordingly.
What email marketers say
12 marketer opinions
Detecting and managing email bot clicks is crucial for accurate email marketing insights. These automated interactions, often from corporate security systems and spam filters, inflate engagement metrics, making it challenging to gauge genuine subscriber behavior. Marketers must employ specific identification techniques to recognize these unique patterns and apply filtering methods to interpret their reports more accurately.
Key opinions
- Rapid, Simultaneous Activity: Bot clicks frequently occur within milliseconds of an email being sent or opened, often registering across all links in the email concurrently.
- Comprehensive Link Interaction: A strong indicator is when every link in an email, including social icons, privacy policies, or even the unsubscribe link, is clicked in rapid succession without logical human progression.
- Lack of Subsequent Web Engagement: Unlike human interactions that typically lead to further page views or activity on the landing page, bot clicks often register only the initial click without any follow-up website engagement.
- Distinctive Metadata Signatures: Analyzing user-agent strings can reveal patterns from known security scanners, corporate firewalls, or unusual browser types, providing clear signals of automated activity.
- Skewed CTOR with Low Conversions: An abnormally high Click-to-Open Rate (CTOR) that is not accompanied by a corresponding increase in conversions or meaningful website activity strongly suggests the presence of bot clicks.
Key considerations
- Granular Data Analysis: Focus on analyzing raw click data, including timestamps, IP addresses, and user-agent strings, to precisely identify and differentiate automated clicks from human engagement.
- Leverage Time-Based Filtering: Implement rules to disregard clicks that occur within an extremely short timeframe, such as 1,000 milliseconds, of the email being sent or opened, as these are highly indicative of bot activity.
- Utilize ESP Features and Webhooks: Explore built-in bot filtering capabilities within your Email Service Provider or use webhooks to mark and segregate suspicious clicks for more accurate reporting.
- Prioritize Behavioral Metrics: Shift focus to metrics that reflect actual subscriber intent and engagement, such as website conversions, time spent on site, and subsequent page views, which are less susceptible to bot interference.
- Understand Bot Origin: Recognize that many automated clicks originate from legitimate security measures like corporate firewalls and anti-spam services that pre-scan links for safety, rather than malicious intent.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that the click spikes are indeed bot or security system scans and advises not to interfere with the clicks themselves, but to remove those happening soon after send from reporting. He suggests analyzing metadata like peer IP or user-agent for more detail and notes that the 'why now' might not have a specific reason, though breaking down by recipient mailbox provider could be interesting.
31 Mar 2024 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that email click spikes and clicks on every link, especially social links in the footer, are super common indicators of bot activity.
5 Nov 2023 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
2 expert opinions
Identifying and mitigating the impact of email bot clicks is essential for accurate newsletter reporting. These automated interactions, primarily generated by security software and pre-fetching mechanisms, artificially inflate engagement metrics. Understanding their unique patterns and focusing on deeper, more reliable indicators of subscriber interest enables marketers to gain a truer picture of campaign performance.
Key opinions
- Bot Click Originators: Artificial clicks primarily stem from security software and various bots pre-fetching URLs to scan for threats before human interaction.
- Instantaneous Click Behavior: A hallmark of bot activity is the occurrence of rapid, immediate clicks right after an email is delivered, often across multiple links simultaneously.
- Distorted Performance Metrics: These automated clicks significantly inflate reported click-through rates, skewing email analytics and potentially misrepresenting sender reputation.
- Lack of Subsequent Engagement: Unlike genuine user interactions, bot clicks typically do not lead to further actions such as website visits, conversions, or other meaningful engagement beyond the initial click.
Key considerations
- Examine Click-Time Patterns: Thoroughly analyze click timestamps to identify unusual bursts of activity that occur instantly or very quickly after email delivery, indicative of bot behavior.
- Correlate with Deeper Analytics: Always cross-reference email click data with broader web analytics, like Google Analytics, to confirm actual website visits, conversions, and other post-click actions.
- Acknowledge ESP Filtering Gaps: Be aware that while Email Service Providers may filter some bot activity, their solutions are not entirely foolproof, requiring marketers to remain vigilant in their analysis.
- Focus on Outcome Metrics: Prioritize tracking and evaluating metrics that demonstrate true user interest and business value, such as leads, sales, and content consumption, over raw click counts.
- Segment for Active Engagement: Consider segmenting subscriber lists based on confirmed, meaningful engagement to better target genuinely active recipients and refine reporting accuracy.
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that security scanners and bots often inflate email click rates by pre-fetching links. To identify these, analyze click patterns, such as rapid clicks right after sending, and correlate with other engagement metrics like conversions or website visits via Google Analytics. Inflated clicks can skew sender reputation. While ESPs may filter some, it is not foolproof, so focus on deeper engagement and consider segmenting users to identify truly active recipients.
27 Jan 2022 - Spam Resource
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, explains that email security software pre-fetches URLs to scan for threats, generating artificial clicks that skew email analytics. These false clicks often occur immediately after delivery. While difficult to completely filter from ESP reports, marketers can identify them by observing click-time patterns and focusing on deeper engagement metrics beyond simple clicks, such as actual conversions or subsequent user actions.
2 Jun 2023 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
To accurately interpret newsletter performance, identifying and filtering out email bot clicks is paramount. Various strategies exist, from leveraging built-in Email Service Provider (ESP) features designed to detect and exclude known bot activity, to implementing custom analysis based on detailed click data. Understanding that some automated clicks originate from legitimate security scanners is also key, as marketers aim to differentiate genuine human engagement from technical pre-fetches.
Key findings
- ESP-Managed Filtering: Many ESPs, like Mailchimp, employ 'Click Protection' or similar internal mechanisms to automatically route and filter out clicks from identified bots and security scanners before reporting.
- Behavioral Pattern Analysis: Identifying bot activity involves scrutinizing click behavior for anomalies such as instant clicks post-send or rapid, sequential clicks on all links within an email, as advised by ActiveCampaign.
- Metadata Examination: Analyzing specific user-agent strings (e.g., Applebot, Googlebot) and IP addresses in click data helps to pinpoint and exclude non-human interactions, as detailed by Postmark.
- Raw Data for Custom Logic: Platforms like SendGrid provide access to raw email event data via webhooks or APIs, enabling developers to implement custom detection logic based on IP, user-agent, and timestamps for more precise filtering.
- Cross-Platform Bot Mitigation: General web analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, offer methods to filter out bot traffic through user-agent filters and IP exclusions, which can be extended to analyze post-email click behavior on landing pages.
Key considerations
- Distinguish Legitimate Scanners: It's important to recognize that many automated clicks come from legitimate corporate firewalls and spam filters, which pre-fetch links for security, rather than malicious bots.
- Leverage ESP Tools: Marketers should utilize their ESP's native bot filtering capabilities first, as these are often designed to simplify the process of clean reporting.
- Deep Dive into Data: For advanced filtering, accessing and analyzing granular click data-including timestamps, user-agent strings, and IP addresses-is crucial for implementing custom detection rules.
- Focus on True Engagement Metrics: Beyond raw clicks, prioritize metrics that reflect genuine human interest and conversion, as these are less susceptible to bot interference and provide a clearer picture of campaign success.
- Continuous Optimization: Bot detection and filtering is an ongoing process; regularly reviewing click patterns and adapting filtering strategies will ensure reporting accuracy over time.
Technical article
Documentation from Mailchimp Knowledge Base explains that their platform often uses 'Click Protection' to filter out bot clicks by routing links through their servers, allowing them to identify and exclude clicks from known bots or security scanners from reported engagement metrics. They also note that some automated clicks are legitimate security scanners from corporate firewalls and spam filters.
13 Dec 2021 - Mailchimp Knowledge Base
Technical article
Documentation from ActiveCampaign Help Center explains that automated clicks from security software or spam filters can inflate click rates. They suggest users analyze click behavior for patterns, such as clicks occurring instantly after an email is sent or rapid sequential clicks on all links, to identify potential bot activity and understand that not all clicks represent human engagement.
20 Aug 2023 - ActiveCampaign Help Center
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