Click Rates Increased Dramatically

[ConnieR68]

Hello,

I scheduled a few messages to go out this morning and noticed our click-rate has increased dramatically since our last mailing. We typically get 100-200 clicks per message, whereas now were getting about 1000-3500 clicks. As much as I'd like to take credit for it, these figures seem to be inflated. Was there a recent update that might be causing this?

[William_A]

Hello @ConnieR68 ,

To my knowledge, no changes have been made in regards to how clicks or overall reporting is conducted, nor did our higher level technical team note anything that's been explicitly changed. It may simply be a matter of shifting audience engagement after the holidays, or a matter of your calls-to-action and other content being more enticing than previously. 

[William_A]

I will note that when my team was perusing your emails to see what might've been sticking out as unusual about them compared to earlier ones, is that one of the links was receiving a particularly high number of clicks compared to others. The main thing about this link is that in the email it's setup to be essentially the same as the rest of the text - nothing distinguishing it as a link.

One thing that some email programs and network security algorithms will utilize are bots that scan for suspicious elements contain in incoming emails. A plain text link is a regular tactic utilized by phishers and other scammers that could definitely trigger these algorithms and bots to "click" the link to check it for malicious content, prior to delivering.

If you are suspicious about your opens and/or clicks spiking, this would be the most likely suspect to check out. You could test to see if your click rates go back down or remain steady, either by completely removing the link for that bit of text, or by making it more obviously a link (color change, underlining, etc.)

[EdSource]

The click rate and open rate have also spiked on our emails within the last week. We haven't changed any call to action on our emails.