99% open rate - can't be true

[ElizabethP960]

I wonder if anyone else has encountered this: We've had a handful of seemingly random emails reach 97-99% open rate when our usual is 20-30%. The support team at Constant Contact believes that a bot is responsible for opening the emails. Our IT/cybersecurity team says if that were the case, wouldn't it be 100% open rate? Researching our cybersecurity tools shows no obvious answer. Do you ever see an email with an exceptionally high open rate, one you believe to be wrong? What was to blame? Thanks for any ideas or guidance.

[Caitlin_M]

Hi @ElizabethP960. In most cases, extraordinarily high rates are caused by security programs reviewing email content prior to landing in the inbox. These services are designed to safeguard recipients from potentially harmful or fraudulent links. This is becoming more common due to email clients/providers implementing more and new enhanced security protocols and link verification services.

However, this may not be the case for all email clients (such as those who use free accounts under Gmail or Yahoo instead of a private domain) which would explain why it's not at 100%.

[ElizabethP960]

If there are any resources/list of technical specs related to security software adn compatibility, I'd love to check it out. We've done three investigations at this point with members of CC team, our IT team and our cybersecurity vendors' teams and we've not found a soultion to our issue. @Caitlin 

[William_A · Accepted solution]

You're welcome to check out this short article on security program opens and clicks. If the security bots still ignore you having self-authentication for your emails, then there's unfortunately nothing else that can be done on your end to alleviate the issue.

You could delete the contacts that are obviously using security programs to open/click emails from your account, but I wouldn't recommend this except as an absolute last resort if your need for the reporting's accuracy within the UI outweighs having these contacts. The best course of action would generally be to omit these contacts from your reporting by exporting the data, then eliminating them in the spreadsheet program you utilize.