Are These Clicks for Real? The Rise of Bot Clicks and What Marketers Can Do About It

Key takeaways:

1. Bot clicks are on the rise and can distort email marketing metrics, making it harder to measure real engagement.
2. Instant clicks, clicks on all links, and a lack of conversions are key signs that bots may be interacting with your emails.
3. Use tools like time-to-click analysis, honeypot links, and support from your ESP to identify and filter out bot activity.
4. Focus on deeper engagement metrics like conversions, site visits, and meaningful actions to accurately measure success.
5. Adapting to bot clicks is essential as security and privacy measures evolve—rely on a broader range of data points for smarter marketing decisions.

Wow, look at all these clicks on our last email send! Are they too good to be true? The short answer: yes.  

Bot clicks have become a growing issue for email marketers, infiltrating reporting metrics and generating clicks that look real but don’t reflect real engagement. A sudden spike in bot clicks can create a false sense of success, making it harder to optimize your program and reach your ideal subscribers.  

Unchecked, bot clicks can wreak havoc across your marketing efforts. They can ruin A/B tests, distort performance reporting, falsely inflate unsubscribe rates, and lead teams to make poor decisions based on misleading data. 

How can marketers fight back? Let’s take a closer look at how to identify bot clicks and what to do about them.  

What are bot clicks?  

A bot click is exactly what it sounds like: a click caused by software rather than a human. Scanners, bots, and crawlers can open and click every link within your email to detect and prevent malicious content before it reaches the subscriber. Bot clicks are protective, primarily focused on preventing phishing attacks, ensuring privacy, and classifying or filtering email.  

These clicks could be coming from a few different sources:  

• Security scanners: Corporate systems and email gateways routinely scan links to check for malware and phishing threats, which can trigger clicks within a tracking system.  

• Mailbox providers: Providers can preload content to help categorize and protect mailboxes. This process can generate a click.  

• Privacy tools: Privacy features and services can preload and interact with links as a way of safeguarding users. 

As inbox providers become more sophisticated with their usage of AI, we may see more cautionary pre-scanning, evaluating, and interacting with emails. While these actions are intended to enhance security and privacy, they can complicate things for email marketers by skewing click metrics and making engagement harder to track.  

Why are bot clicks increasing for you? 

If you’ve noticed a sudden spike in bot activity, something in your emails may be getting flagged as suspicious. We’ve seen this during big changes like email service provider (ESP) migrations, infrastructure adjustments, or sudden large bulk sends.  

Here are a few questions to consider during a spike in bot activity: 

• Are you using HTTPS on your links for better security? 

• Are you following authentication requirements and best practices (DMARC, SPF, DKIM)? 

• Do you have a healthy sender reputation? 

• Are you maintaining strong list hygiene by removing invalid and inactive addresses? 

How to distinguish between real and bot clicks 

Identifying bot clicks can be tricky, but there are common signs that may help you determine whether your clicks are real or automated:  

• Instant clicks: If the click occurs within a second of delivery, they’re likely automated. 

• Clicks on all links: Subscribers typically click one or two links. If you’re seeing clicks on every link, including footer and legal content, it’s likely a bot.  

• Click increases without conversions: If you see a spike in click rates, but no increase in conversions, site traffic, or other engagement metrics, bots may be to blame.  

If you suspect bot activity, here are some steps you can take to confirm: 

• Review time-to-click: Analyze timestamps between delivery and clicks. If the click is unrealistically fast, then it’s probably a bot.  

• Check with your ESP: Some ESPs have tools to identify bot clicks and letting you filter them out or remove them from your reporting. Reach out to your account manager to check if this functionality is available. If it isn’t, consider advocating for a new product feature. 

• Use hidden links (honeypots): Implement an invisible link that bots can interact with, but humans cannot see. Traffic from this link can help confirm bot activity. Be sure the link is valid and renders correctly, especially in dark mode. 

• Important note: Honeypot links can appear suspicious to mailbox providers (MBPs) and may impact deliverability. If you use this technique, do so cautiously. Make sure to limit its duration and closely monitor your metrics. 

What else can we do?  

Clicks have largely replaced opens as the main engagement identifier for the health of your email program. While it’s still a great signal, marketers need to rely on a broader range of data points to accurately measure success—especially as bot clicks and AI filtering make everything a bit trickier.  

To get a clearer picture of true engagement, consider placing more emphasis on: 

• Conversions: Opens and clicks are great, but the real determining factor is if they lead to the main goal of the email. Whether it’s a sale, event sign-up, app download, or another action, conversions should be tracked and used as a key performance indicator (KPI). 

• Site visits from email: Are you seeing people click and spend time on your site? Use your UTMs to determine session activity after clicking. 

• Meaningful actions: Even if they aren’t converting, are they taking other important actions such as adding items to their cart, forwarding the email, replying, or filling out forms?  

Adapting to a bot-click future 

Bot clicks aren’t going away—if anything, we will see them increase as security and privacy protections continue to evolve. That’s why marketers must focus on adapting to these changes. Looking beyond the surface-level metrics such as opens and clicks is key to identifying the true health of your email program. Deeper engagement signals can equip you with the data you need to make smarter decisions and optimize your email program.  

Looking to dive deeper into the email metrics that really matter? Check out our helpful guide!