Need help filtering out BOTS

[user41581]

Hello,
Hoping there are some good insights to help us collect actual interested leads. We just sent out an email to 480 people we have in our email list. We received 32 clicks. If I export the data/contacts and filter I am able to see that all but 3 clicks were the same person 10 times. 

Does this Marketing Tool help identify suspicious activity? such as multiple clicks from the same IP address within a short period.

Does any specific content in emails attract bots? (e.g., if it contains certain keywords or links). Are we inadvertently attracting automated clicks?

If we can't filter out BOTs can we put a link in that would attract BOTS and filter that out... Hoping there are good insights to share - MANY thanks in advance!

[William_A · Accepted solution]

Hello @user41581 ,

I responded to your previous asking about this issue, but I will provide the response here as well in case.

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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. This will be indicated by those contacts clicking all the poll options at the same time, typically within 1-2 minutes of you sending the email.

In all honesty, the only suggestion I'd normally have is to swap your authentication to self-authentication since you have your own domain, however your account is already set up as such. Ideally, this would 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. 

Beyond that, there's not much else you can do from your end to prevent these. 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 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.

If you're finding a significant amount of your contacts are utilizing these programs, then the other advice I have would come down to one of two options:

• Delete the bot-click contacts from your account entirely - only do this if you feel they are not worthwhile clientele/customers, and aren't actually interested in what you're sending them.
• Make "Bot-Click" versions of all of your lists, and move these contacts out of the normal lists and into those bot-click versions. Then you'd need to have two copies of each email, one for the regular contacts and the other for the bot-clicks, and send the email to the corresponding list. This way your reporting for the normal contacts is more accurate, and the bot-clickers are isolated but still available to send to. This won't help your account's overall averages for reporting, but it will make the specified email campaigns, and the Reporting page if specifically comparing those, much more accurate for your needs. 

[user41581]

Thank you very much William for the reply. Yes I have been calling in and discussing further with the Constant Contact support team and they are saying that you are working on a solution. It is a challenging one as it is in the security settings of the recipients. At this time the click numbers are being skewed and it's hard to discern who are the interested ones. I appreciate your ideas on removing or sorting them into a different list. And yes that does remove a large number from our lists. I am still searching for a better solution. thanks again!

[jenniferb0329]

Thanks for posting!  I just joined CC last month and have had this issues with all my emailers.  I am getting 200-400 Clicks from Bots each time.   I'll have to go through each contact to determine which are bot clicks.  Now my web stats are falsely elevated which is not good for my marketing research.  I also called and they said they are working on it.   I hope the solution is soon!  If you have come up with something I'd love to hear it!