Clicks and Opens Legitimacy

[WillB26]

Hello everyone, 

Our company has been experiencing what we believe to be a large number of bots on our email blasts, making it hard to decipher which opens and clicks are legitimate. We work in the electric utility industry, meaning the cybersecurity regulations are fairly strict. 

Is there a way for us to either reduce the number of bots that are clicking/scanning through our emails or figure out a way to determine which interactions are meaningful? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @WillB26 ,

If their network or email program uses some kind of security tool that "opens" emails and "clicks" their links to check for malware, it can result in that kind of data. Setting up your account for self-authentication can show the security algorithms that emails being sent through us by you are effectively coming directly from you, and avoid triggering the clicks/opens from bots, but it's unfortunately not a guarantee as some security programs are simply built to function like this.

Beyond that, there's not much else you can do from your end. Our devs are constantly trying to identify the various programs that utilize this functionality, so they can set our system to ignore the behavior and triggers from these particular programs. If, after setting your account up for self-auth, the click rates continue to be inflated or worsen, then it may be worth calling in. That way our general support or higher level technical team can see if there's any further info that can be gleamed from the content of the emails with you live on the phone, or to see if the domains of the contacts that are seeming to bot-click them show any other particular consistencies we can track.