Summary
Email click rates can appear deceptively high, often due to automated interactions from security scanners and spam filters, rather than genuine human engagement. This phenomenon, particularly prevalent with providers like Outlook and Hotmail, distorts critical marketing metrics and can lead to misinformed campaign strategies.
Key findings
- Bot activity: Spam filters and security scans, especially from Microsoft (Hotmail/Outlook), routinely pre-scan links in emails, leading to artificial clicks.
- Metric distortion: These automated interactions inflate click-through rates (CTR) and open rates, making it challenging to gauge true subscriber engagement and campaign effectiveness.
- Recent increase: There has been a notable surge in this automated click behavior since late 2023, continuing into 2024.
- Targeted senders: This bot behavior appears to specifically target certain senders for periods, before eventually tapering off.
- Unsubscribe impact: While some bots may click unsubscribe links, two-step unsubscribe processes generally prevent unwanted unsubscriptions.
Key considerations
- Data accuracy: It is crucial to accurately identify and filter out bot clicks to ensure that performance reports reflect genuine human engagement. For more information, consider how to avoid false email click and open data.
- Segmentation: Segmenting email lists by domain (for example, separating Outlook/Hotmail recipients) can help provide a clearer analysis of true engagement rates.
- ESPs features: Many email service providers (ESPs) now offer built-in features to flag or exclude bot clicks from reporting, aiding in data clean-up.
- Timestamp analysis: Examining click timestamps can reveal automated behavior, such as multiple clicks occurring immediately after email delivery.
- IP identification: Where available, identifying the IP addresses of clicks can help determine if they originate from known security filters. For more on this, read about bot clicks in email marketing.
What email marketers say
Email marketers frequently encounter the frustrating issue of inflated click rates, which obscures the true performance of their campaigns. This leads to confusion and misinterpretation of engagement metrics, making it difficult to optimize strategies effectively.
Key opinions
- Unexpected spikes: Marketers frequently report sudden, significant increases in click-through rates, particularly noticeable within Hotmail and Outlook email domains.
- Self-observed discrepancies: Many marketers personally observe clicks registered on their own Hotmail accounts, despite not having interacted with the emails themselves.
- Impact on metrics: These inflated rates severely distort the understanding of campaign effectiveness, making genuinely normal rates appear disproportionately low in comparison.
- Seeking solutions: There is a strong demand among marketers for reliable methods to accurately identify and filter out bot activity to preserve the integrity of their data.
- Temporary normalisation: Some campaigns might experience a brief return to normal click rates, only to see the inflated bot clicks resume shortly thereafter.
Key considerations
- Segmenting domains: Strategically splitting problematic domains, such as Hotmail or Outlook, into distinct campaigns allows for more accurate metric analysis.
- Leveraging ESP features: Utilizing features like bot_click flags in email service providers is essential for filtering out non-human interactions from reports.
- Reviewing timestamps: It is important to investigate click and open timestamps for anomalies, such as bursts of activity occurring immediately after email delivery, which may indicate a sudden increase in bot activity in campaigns. Learn more about why you might be seeing increased bot activity.
- Direct ESP communication: Engage proactively with ESP support to understand and access new beta features or filtering options specifically designed to address bot clicks.
- Testing strategies: Experiment with different segmentation approaches to isolate and analyze the specific impact of bot activity on various parts of your email list. The Constant Contact community has also discussed spikes in click rates.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks observes: As of May 24, campaign click-through rates (CTR) began to skyrocket, with Hotmail and Outlook domains specifically identified as the primary cause.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Constant Contact Community suggests: Bots from a contact's email client, likely checking for spam, can be responsible for automatically clicking all links within an email.
What the experts say
Deliverability experts confirm that the issue of inflated email click rates is a recognized industry-wide challenge, primarily stemming from the evolving security mechanisms implemented by major mailbox providers. Their insights offer a deeper understanding of the technical intricacies behind these anomalies.
Key opinions
- Microsoft's role: Experts note that Microsoft (Outlook, Hotmail) has significantly increased its aggressive link-following behavior since late 2023, contributing to widespread click inflation.
- Targeted campaigns: This automated behavior is not applied universally but tends to target specific senders for varying periods.
- Bot detection logic: Email service providers (ESPs) employ a combination of diverse metadata attributes to identify bot clicks, aiming to minimize false positives in their detection.
- Unsubscribe process: Two-step unsubscribe URLs are effective in preventing bots from causing unintended unsubscribes, as they require an additional confirmation.
- Beta features: Some ESPs are actively rolling out beta features designed to filter bot clicks from reporting, providing a more accurate view of actual engagement.
Key considerations
- Understanding bot mechanisms: For deliverability experts, it is crucial to stay informed about how various mailbox providers' security filters operate. Understanding how to prevent bot clicks from hurting email reputation is essential.
- Data integrity: ESPs must continually refine their bot detection algorithms to ensure the accuracy and reliability of reported email metrics.
- Client communication: Experts should effectively advise clients on how to interpret and mitigate the misleading effects of inflated clicks on their email campaigns.
- Collaboration with ESPs: Working closely with ESPs to implement and leverage features that distinguish human from bot interactions is vital for accurate reporting. For more context on the causes, check out what causes increased bot clicks and spam rates.
- Long-term trends: Continuous monitoring of these trends is essential, as bot behavior and filtering mechanisms are constantly evolving within the email ecosystem. EmailTooltester.com has more insights on open rate issues in email marketing.
Expert view
Email expert from Email Geeks recalls: I once discovered that Microsoft's cloud Exchange Online Protection (EOP) filter IP was automatically clicking the unsubscribe button for various Office 365 accounts.
Expert view
Email expert from Spam Resource observes: Automated bot activity, including both opens and clicks, poses a frequent challenge for email marketers seeking to precisely measure engagement levels.
What the documentation says
Official documentation from email service providers and various industry resources consistently acknowledge that non-human interactions, such as automated clicks from security scanners and spam filters, significantly impact email metrics. This section synthesizes their findings and recommended approaches.
Key findings
- Non-human interactions (NHI): ESPs frequently classify these automated clicks as non-human interactions, distinguishing them from genuine user engagement.
- Security scanning: A primary driver of inflated clicks is the behavior of security software and spam filters that pre-scan links to check for phishing attempts or malware.
- Impact on reporting: These security scans can result in false positives, thereby compromising the accuracy of reported click-through rates.
- Mitigation features: Many platforms provide specific tools or settings designed to help identify and, where possible, filter out these automated clicks from metric data.
- Dedicated tracking: Implementing dedicated click tracking domains is suggested as a way to potentially gain greater control and clarity over recorded click events.
Key considerations
- Distinguishing bot clicks: Documentation often advises looking for specific indicators, such as rapid, sequential clicks originating from non-human IP addresses. For example, Barracuda spam filter clicks are known to affect metrics.
- Understanding data limitations: Marketers must be aware that reported metrics may not always perfectly reflect human engagement due to the influence of these automated interactions.
- Utilizing platform features: It is recommended to leverage any built-in features for bot detection or data filtering offered by your specific email platform.
- Unsubscribe link protection: Ensure that unsubscribe processes require a second confirmation step to prevent accidental unsubscribes triggered by bots. This is also important for DMARC reports from Google and Yahoo.
- Continuous monitoring: Regularly monitoring email metrics and staying aware of new bot behaviors are crucial for maintaining accurate insights into campaign performance. ClickDimensions also has an article on unexpected click email events.
Technical article
Documentation from ClickDimensions explains: Unexpected email events, such as clicks, can be generated by non-human interactions, primarily stemming from the security scanning processes employed by recipients' email service providers.
Technical article
Documentation from ClickDimensions clarifies: These security scans are designed to pre-check URLs within emails to verify their safety, which inadvertently causes the links to be triggered or clicked.
Related resources
15 resources
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How to increase email click through rate [step by step guide]
