Omit Clicks, Opens, etc. from reporting when performed by a security program

[BarryW49]

Seems that a number of companies have started automatically tracing back all the links in emails. This makes the click reports pretty useless. Results are swamped with this.

[CIFMarketing0296]

The plot thickens. Update on our questionable data resulting from a monthly e-newsletter.

We received a large number of clicks on a Twitter link to our page there and Apple App store link for our company app, both of which normally have almost no clicks. CC said this was likely from security programs checking links - but I think it's strange that it was only for these two.

After some digging, we found that if you have hidden links in your email - end user systems can flag your email and then add greater scrutiny (clicks?) Spammers apparently use these hidden links to do their ill will. 

We had a couple of them in the footer of our message - added to deal with earlier bad data coming in through CC due to robots clicking every link in the email (and messing up our data). Hence, anyone who clicked on a hidden link was not a person but a robot. Those have now been removed and I am hoping we don't have this problem when we send again soon.

Apparently there is a paid service CC offers to dig deeper but the general help via chat was quite broad and did not give any insights into why this is happening. Maybe together as a community we can try to figure this out. Appreciate you all.

[SoundAdvice]

So disheartening to realize nothing has been solved on this issue in the last 4+ years. I'm new to CC, and was blown away to look at the engagement reports and see how every link is clicked in my "opened" emails within one minute of the campaign going out. The only way to really know if an email is opened is if they Unsubscribe 😂 

[CIFMarketing0296]

I am starting to wonder if the Constant Contact staff or key vendors even read these forums. Is there anything new to report, solutions they are working on?

[Passport]

Following this thread. It is really annoying to see that open, click report phenomena. Unfortunately, I think it has more to do with virus software than with Constant Contact. I use another email program for another operation and it experiences the same phenomena. I was told that some virus software "triggers" links to check the domain the link is associated with as part of its security protocol. I don't see how any program is going to be able to differentiate between an automated click and a human click, except perhaps by the timing of the open/click record....

[user629247]

Because of companies email security software, reporting on open rates and click-through rates is skewed. Please consider dividing up opens and clicks that aren't "real" and were only from security platforms. Several of our emails show certain contacts opening the email and clicking every single link which we know is not an accurate measurement and skews campaign metrics. 

[SherryF724]

I am noticing more and more that every time I send an email, a very large proportion of recipients "open and click on every link" - however it's obvious that this isn't really the case.  It's their system checking for spam.

Will Constant Contact be able to differentiate these and report on actual opens and clicks?  It's becoming near impossible now to measure Email effectiveness.

thanks.

[user376455]

 ISSUE: Non-Human agents and bots

we are surveying our email recipients to find out if they actually "opened" or clicked at a specific time shown on the dash board.

Almost 45% say "NO". Our sales have dropped proportionately. We are being charged for a large number of contacts that are not receiving our webinar offerings.

We are being fooled into thinking they are successful opens.

We have cut our links down to 2-3 max and using very sparse imaging and color in our copy.

WHAT ARE THE NAMES OF THE NON HUMAN AGENT SECURITY PROGRAM AND BOTS THAT CONSTANT CONTACT SAYS THEY TRACK AND REVERSE OUT NUMBERS OF CLICKS AND OPENS?

[AndrewB8422]

In order for the one-click polls to accept a response I would suggest there be a captcha the user has to complete. I've noticed a lot of spam systems are now automatically clicking all the links in an email before it hits their inboxes resulting in very skewed responses. In the most recent poll I sent, there are numerous responses where users clicked both yes and no simultaneously within seconds of the email being sent.