False Positive Opens and CLick Throughs

[MikeC733]

Over the past few years we have noticed that we have had far less engagement following sending emails even thought our open and click throughs remain the same. When we look at the stats it is obvious that the click throughs and opens are being done automatically by software on our customers side. All the opens and click throughs happen within a minute of the email being sent. Even people from within the same organization open within minues even though we know they are not even at work. Any suggestions?

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @MikeC733 ,

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. However it's unfortunately not a guarantee as some security programs are simply built to function like this. Some security programs will even trigger for internally-sent emails if they're particularly stringent.

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.

[user726233]

Hi. I am really bummed by the inaccurate open and click-thru reports. But I have a question. I can easily tell the clicks and opens that are false positives. It's simply the ones that come within a minute or 2 of sending and those that click thru all or most of the links. If I can easily see what opens and clicks are 'false positive', why can't Constant Contact do the same and delete those false positives? It sounds like a simple and good use of AI (or maybe not even AI). 

[MikeC733]

Thank you