poll results

[AmyJ36928]

I sent out a survey that included a poll but the results are incorrect and show everyone selected every option.  When I chatted with customer support, they said there is a know bug within the poll feature and they are working on it.  Has anyone had any luck?

[William_A]

Hello @AmyJ36928 ,

It is a "known issue" as chat support says when there's something on our radar, but it isn't a bug- it's the unfortunate expected behavior for systems using bots to check for malware. 

To be frank, the reporting info for these contacts simply won't be viable ever, if they (or their org's IT) are using such security protocols, it will make the contacts appear to be clicking every single link all within the same single minute upon receiving it. If you're wanting to keep the contacts, but separate them for the sake for your reporting, then I'd advise isolating these contacts to a new list meant for contacts that auto-forward or use bot security checks, and send separate email copies to that list. That way your main emails to your direct, human contacts will have more accurate reporting. 

If you'd like the step-by-step process of what I'm describing:

1. Identify the contacts that are causing these bloated open and click statistics. Consider tagging them for quick referral when you identify them, as this can quicken the list creation.
2. Create a new list, call it something obvious like "Suspected Bot / Auto-Forward Contacts," then add the suspected contacts to that list. If you need to be particularly granular with the list memberships, then I'd advise instead making "suspected..." copies of each of your lists, and applying these suspected contacts to the applicable copied lists.
   • Consider making a note in the suspect contacts of what lists they were previously on, or use the tags mentioned earlier, in case you decide later you don't like this setup and want to put the suspect contacts back into the main lists.
3. Once the suspect contacts are on the suspect list(s), remove them from the normal list(s) they're on.
4. From here on, you'll need to send two versions of the emails you'd normally be sending to these lists - one for the seemingly normal contacts, and a copy that you send to the suspect lists.

[AmyJ36928]

Hello William,

Thanks for your response.  You wrote: the reporting info for these contacts simply won't be viable ever, 

so the result can not be extracted I can only resend?  I will follow your steps, but I am so disappointed that the results are unusable.  The poll in my email for for our national conference and the choices were: Yes, No, or No but please send me information.  So now I do not know who to contact with additional information.  This affects our business.  Let me know if there is anything I can do.

[William_A]

I would recommend a different strategy for your national conference - i.e. create an event, or if you're only trying to gather interest, create a survey that they explicitly have to interact with and submit.

[AmyJ36928]

Thanks William,

If this is a known issue, why do they offer this feature?  Has it ever worked?  Are any of the results I got viable?  

Amy

[William_A]

Previously, when poll blocks were introduced to the email builder, and at this time, the average person does not utilize security bots to check for malware in a way that clicks every single link and download every single image.

[AmyJ36928]

Are any of the result I got that are viable?  Would I be able to show you the export?

[William_A]

You'd want to compare it to the rest of your click reporting. The contacts that very obivously clicked every single link all within a single minute would indicate they're using a bot program, and should be deleted from the export. Once you've removed those obvious bot contacts from the export, you can determine how to manage the poll's respondents.