Are you seeing suspiciously high open and click rates on marketing emails? Bot clicks and opens are usually responsible for distorting email marketing metrics.
While we all like to see impressive open and click rates, email scanners and scripts may be inflating those numbers artificially. That makes it difficult to measure campaign ROI.
This guide explains why bot clicks and opens are a problem – and what you can do about it.
What Are Bot Clicks and Opens in Email Marketing?
A bot click or open means that the email was opened (or clicked) by an automated script. These scripts are used to check for phishing links or viruses.
As bots ‘open’ the emails, or test the links, this activity is picked up in your campaign reporting along with regular human activity. That means your email marketing KPIs might be affected. For example:
- Your open rates aren’t an accurate reflection of real human readers, which means your A/B tests won’t be accurate either.
- If your click-through rate isn’t accurate, you can’t measure the impact of call-to-action buttons.
- Bot clicks could move people through funnels or workflows prematurely, or even unsubscribe them silently without them knowing.
We all want to increase email list engagement, but this automated activity can get in the way of the real data.
How Email Marketing Platforms Filter Bot Activity
Email marketing platforms want to give you the most accurate statistics on campaign performance.
Many have developed ways to filter out bot activity from human clicks and opens. They do this by looking for patterns:
- When bots click or open emails, they tend to click very soon after emails are sent. Humans are slower.
- Bots click on many links in a short time, while humans may only click one or two as they’re reading.
These kinds of patterns allow the email providers to filter out activity that looks like it’s come from a script and not a person.
It’s important to note that bot detection will never be 100% accurate. Additionally, different providers filter bot clicks and opens in different ways. Tackling bot activity should be part of a broader initiative to proactively manage your email lists.
Here’s a quick rundown of the ways top email marketing platforms are dealing with bot activity.
ActiveCampaign
BotSense is ActiveCampaign’s solution for bot clicks and opens. It’s available on Pro and Enterprise plans.
It filters activity in your Campaign Overview Report, Campaign Clicks Report, and Campaign Links Report. Notably, it does not filter bot activity from triggers in workflows, segments, and a few other areas. So while it’s helpful, keep in mind that your high-level reports may not be as accurate as you would hope.
What's great is that ActiveCampaign also adds a CAPTCHA to unsubscribe requests. That means bots can’t remove people from your list by accident.
Pros:
- Easy to toggle on and off for quick comparisons
- Built-in unsubscribe protection
Cons:
- Doesn’t stop triggers from firing
- Only available on Pro and Enterprise plans
- Doesn’t cover all reports
Learn more about ActiveCampaign
Klaviyo
Klaviyo’s email bot protection applies to both SMS and email reports. Like ActiveCampaign, it applies in some areas and not others; email campaign trends aren’t filtered, for example.
It’s the only provider we checked that allows you to filter bot clicks separately in reporting and attribution. That means you can remove bot clicks from your reports, but keep them in revenue tracking if you need to make sure those conversions are counted.
Pros:
- Filter reports, attribution metrics, or both
- Applies to email and SMS
Cons:
- Setup is a little complex
- Applies to email and SMS
Constant Contact
Email bot filtering is enabled by default on Constant Contact email marketing reports, based on their list of known non-human user agents (security programs and bots).
There isn’t much detail on how it works and the filtering isn’t customizable. However, if you want a simple solution, this might be a good fit for you.
Given that Constant Contact can be pricey compared to other email service providers, it's a little disappointing that users don't have more control over this feature.
Constant Contact notes that its filtering can’t catch all automated activity, but it should remove a “significant portion” of bot clicks and opens.
Pros:
- Enabled by default
Cons:
- No way to customize the filtering
- Not much detail on how filtering is applied
- Basic solution compared to that offered by other ESPs
Learn more about Constant Contact
HubSpot
HubSpot has the most complex approach of all of the providers we checked. You can filter bot activity across your CRM, including your emails, calls-to-action buttons (CTAs), social posts, and more.
It combines its list of known bots with an option to create custom rules. That means you can filter by specific IPs and domains. While this is powerful, it means there is more setup and maintenance involved.
One important note: filtering can’t be applied retroactively. For example, if you block an IP, it won’t be excluded from any metrics that are already wrong.
Pros:
- Powerful account-wide settings
- Manual IP filtering
- Known bot filtering
- Flexible blocking options (IP addresses, ranges, domains, referrers)
Cons:
- Can’t be applied to past reports
- Manual exclusion requires ongoing maintenance
Brevo
Brevo’s approach is very much like Constant Contact’s bot filter. As a low-cost provider, this perhaps isn’t surprising.
Brevo filters out bot activity by default on all of its accounts, without any need to opt in. So if you’re using Brevo for email marketing, you’re already benefiting from the feature.
Its bot-filtering tools also apply to email and SMS campaigns.
The downside of simple, automatic filtering is that there’s no way to look ‘under the hood’, or change the settings.
Pros:
- Default filtering
- SMS and email filtering
- Filtering is account-wide
Cons:
- No way to disable or customize filtering
- Not much detail on how filtering is applied
Final Tips on Email Deliverability
Now you’re blocking bot clicks and opens, there’s just one thing to remember: comparing open rates or click-through rates across platforms will be tricky.
As we’ve mentioned, each provider has its own way of dealing with this problem. If open rates are lower on one platform vs. another, it could just be that they’re filtering bot clicks and opens differently.
Bot detection is not foolproof, and when it comes to increasing ROI, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. Be sure to check our free email deliverability checklist to ensure your emails always reach the people who want to hear from you.
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This article has been written and researched following our EmailTooltester methodology.
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