Summary
Unusual click activity originating primarily from Amazon EC2 IP addresses, concentrated on a single link within an email campaign, often points to automated security scanning or bot behavior rather than genuine user engagement. This phenomenon is particularly prevalent with Gmail recipients, but can also affect other mailbox providers. The unique characteristics, such as clicks occurring in rapid succession with dual user agents (Linux and Windows), suggest a system designed to preemptively verify links for safety or to flag potential threats. Identifying the root cause is crucial for accurate campaign performance analysis and maintaining good sender reputation.
Key findings
- Amazon EC2 IPs: A high concentration of clicks from Amazon EC2 IP ranges strongly indicates automated systems, as EC2 is Amazon's cloud computing platform commonly used for web scraping, security scanning, and other automated tasks.
- Single link focus: When clicks are predominantly on one specific link (especially a footer link), it often suggests a targeted scan by an anti-phishing or security service, or a bot looking for vulnerabilities or specific content. This is a common pattern observed when hidden links get high click rates.
- Dual user agents: The presence of two clicks per contact, milliseconds apart, with different user agents (Linux and Windows) points to sophisticated scanning behavior. This mimics how different operating systems or environments might access and verify links.
- Gmail prevalence: Gmail (Google Workspace) is known for its robust security features, including advanced link scanning and URL prefetching. This behavior aligns with services like Google Safe Browsing that scan links before delivery.
- Legitimate subscribers: The fact that clicks originate from long-standing, previously engaged subscribers suggests these are not spam traps or malicious attacks on your list, but rather security measures affecting your actual audience.
Key considerations
- Impact on metrics: Automated clicks inflate your click-through rates (CTR) and can skew engagement metrics. This makes it challenging to accurately assess campaign performance and user interest. You should identify artificial email opens and clicks.
- Deliverability: While these clicks are generally benign, an unusual pattern might flag your campaigns if it's interpreted as suspicious activity. Consistently clean email practices are essential for maintaining your sender reputation.
- Segmentation impact: If your segments are based on engagement (e.g., clicks), these automated interactions could lead to unintended inclusions or exclusions, affecting future targeting.
- Third-party services: Investigate if any third-party services used by your clients (e.g., security software, firewalls, or corporate VPNs) could be employing Amazon EC2 for their internal email scanning or monitoring processes.
- Link characteristics: Even if the link seems innocuous, examine its full URL, any redirects, and the content of the linked page for anything that could trigger an automated scanner. Some services perform deep scans, even on help pages, to ensure no malicious content or redirect is present.
What email marketers say
Email marketers frequently encounter unexpected click activity, and the consensus leans towards automated security features or bot interactions. The challenge lies in distinguishing these automated clicks from genuine engagement and understanding their implications for campaign reporting and future strategy. Many marketers acknowledge that inflated click metrics can distort their understanding of recipient behavior and segment effectiveness.
Key opinions
- Bot activity is common: Many marketers recognize that bot clicks are a pervasive issue, particularly when observed consistently across campaigns or targeting specific links. They acknowledge the need to prevent bot clicks from hurting email reputation.
- Security scanning: A common belief is that these clicks originate from email client or ISP security systems that pre-scan links to protect users from phishing or malware. This is especially true for major providers like Gmail.
- Data accuracy: The primary concern for marketers is the integrity of their data, as these artificial clicks inflate engagement metrics, making it difficult to gauge actual recipient interest and optimize campaigns.
- Context matters: Marketers note that the specific link being clicked (e.g., a privacy policy or unsubscribe link in the footer) often correlates with automated scanning behavior, as these are common targets for security checks.
Key considerations
- Segment integrity: Marketers should review if these clicks affect how they segment their audience. If segments are based on click engagement, artificial clicks could lead to misinformed campaign targeting.
- Reporting adjustments: It's important to develop strategies for cleaning or flagging these clicks in reports to provide a more accurate picture of campaign performance. Understanding how to increase email click through rate requires clean data.
- Subscriber behavior analysis: Marketers should analyze whether the affected subscribers show other signs of engagement or if these anomalous clicks are their only activity, which could further confirm bot or scanner behavior.
- Monitor for patterns: Regularly monitoring click data for unusual patterns, specific IP ranges (like Amazon EC2), or user agent anomalies can help proactively identify and address such issues before they significantly impact reporting.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests that their client is experiencing highly unusual click behavior, with hugely increased clicks concentrated on a small footer link. This is occurring for long-standing subscribers, many of whom have previously purchased, yet the client has not seen this behavior with these segments in other campaigns. They find this very odd.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks observes that almost half of the nearly 40,000 clicks come from just three Amazon-owned IP addresses, with other checked IPs also belonging to Amazon. This concentration on a few Amazon IPs for a massive volume of clicks indicates a non-human origin, likely automated.
What the experts say
Deliverability experts often attribute unusual click patterns, particularly from cloud service IPs, to sophisticated security mechanisms employed by mailbox providers or corporate filters. They emphasize the importance of analyzing IP addresses and user agent strings to differentiate between human interaction and automated scans. The consensus is that while these clicks may appear concerning, they are frequently a sign of protective measures at play.
Key opinions
- IP address analysis is key: Experts advise that the first step in diagnosing unusual click activity is to thoroughly investigate the originating IP addresses. Identifying them as belonging to cloud providers like Amazon EC2 is a strong indicator of automated activity. This aligns with diagnosing unusual clicks in SendGrid.
- Threat monitoring services: Many experts suggest that concentrated clicks from EC2 IPs are likely from third-party threat monitoring or filtering services. These services often utilize cloud infrastructure to scan emails for malicious content or suspicious links before they reach the recipient's inbox.
- Gmail's scanning behavior: A significant portion of such activity, especially with Gmail recipients, is attributed to Google's own internal security measures, which pre-scan links within emails delivered to their users. This can lead to a sudden increase in bot click activity.
- Link-specific triggers: The fact that only one specific link is being clicked makes experts consider if something about that particular link (even if seemingly harmless) might be triggering the scanners. This could be due to specific keywords, the link's structure, or a perceived pattern.
- MX record checks: For non-Gmail recipients experiencing similar issues, checking their MX records (Mail Exchange records) can reveal if they are using Google Workspace or other services that employ similar scanning technologies.
Key considerations
- Distinguishing real engagement: It is crucial to develop methods to filter out or flag these automated clicks from true user engagement for accurate reporting. This ensures that engagement metrics reflect actual human interest.
- Potential blacklist impact: While typically benign, an extreme surge of automated clicks could (in rare cases) be misconstrued as bot activity originating from your end, potentially impacting your sender reputation or leading to an IP blocklist listing.
- Monitoring for shifts: Continuously monitor for changes in these click patterns, as new security measures or bot behaviors can emerge, requiring ongoing adaptation of your analysis.
- User agent analysis: Detailed analysis of user agent strings, especially those showing unusual combinations or rapid switches, can provide further clues about the nature of the automated system interacting with your links.
Expert view
Deliverability expert from Email Geeks indicates that the first crucial step in investigating such click anomalies is to examine the IP addresses from which the clicks are originating. This initial check can quickly reveal if the source is legitimate user activity or an automated system.
Expert view
Deliverability expert from SpamResource suggests that understanding which IP addresses are involved is fundamental to diagnosing click fraud or bot activity. If the IPs are associated with known hosting providers, it typically points to automated scanning rather than human interaction.
What the documentation says
Official documentation from major cloud providers and email service companies often alludes to or explicitly describes automated systems that scan incoming email for security purposes. These systems, frequently deployed on scalable infrastructures like Amazon EC2, are designed to protect users from phishing, malware, and spam by pre-fetching and analyzing links. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for email senders to interpret their engagement data accurately.
Key findings
- Security scanning as a service: AWS documentation implicitly supports the use of EC2 instances for running various security applications, including threat monitoring and email filtering services. These services often involve automated link pre-fetching.
- Link pre-screening: Documentation for email clients and services like Gmail's Safe Browsing technology details how they scan URLs in emails to protect users before a click occurs, leading to artificial clicks.
- Bounce management: AWS documentation on email deliverability for SES (Simple Email Service) mentions that unusual bounce behavior can indicate problems with mail servers, indirectly highlighting how unusual traffic patterns (like excessive clicks) could be a symptom of underlying deliverability issues.
- Distinguishing bots from users: Security best practices often include methods for identifying and mitigating bot traffic, which involves analyzing IP addresses, user agents, and click timestamps, as outlined in guides on why emails go to spam.
Key considerations
- Understanding false positives: Documentation often emphasizes that automated security scans are designed to err on the side of caution. This means even legitimate links can be clicked by scanners, leading to inflated metrics. It's a key aspect of email deliverability issues.
- IP reputation: While Amazon EC2 IPs are generally reputable, repeated anomalous behavior originating from them (if misidentified as malicious) could potentially influence a sender's own IP reputation with specific receivers.
- Filtering strategy: Senders may need to adjust their analytics to filter out known security scanner IP ranges or user agents to gain a clearer view of human engagement. This practice is part of technical solutions for email deliverability.
Technical article
Documentation from AWS states that their EC2 instances can be configured to perform a wide range of tasks, including automated data processing, web crawling, and security analysis. This flexibility means that many third-party security vendors use EC2 for their services, which could explain the concentrated clicks.
Technical article
Documentation from MailBluster confirms that link previews by email clients or security software can register as clicks. These preloads occur when the system scans emails for malicious links before the recipient even opens them, leading to recorded engagement from automated sources.
Related resources
7 resources
Related pages
How to identify artificial email opens and clicks generated by spam filters?
What could cause unusual clicks and unsubscribes in SendGrid, and how can I troubleshoot it?
How can I prevent bot clicks from hurting my email reputation?
Why am I seeing a sudden increase in bot click activity in my email campaigns?
Why do hidden links in emails get high click rates from bots and automated systems?
How email blacklists actually work: a simple guide
Why your emails are going to spam in 2024 and how to fix it
How to increase email click through rate [Step By Step Guide]
Boost email deliverability rates: technical solutions from top performing senders
Ultimate guide to Google Postmaster Tools V2
