Bot clicks, at its simplest are when a software program uses an auto bot to command information from a link which replicates the way a human would click a link.
High click rate but low audience count? We’re going to give you some insight into how we detect bots at Spotler.
When trying to determine activity we look at:
- Are the clicks in quick succession of each other e.g. seconds or milliseconds?
- Is this for more than one link in the email?
- Do the IPs for these clicks match?
- Are there clicks before the email has actually been delivered to the recipient?
Methods of Bot Detection
We have three ways of detecting bots on the platform:
- Automatic detection involves us inserting a hidden link into your email. This is invisible to you and the recipients of your email campaigns as it is intended to act like a beacon, alerting us to bot activity quickly.
- Manual detection means you contact us, and we do the investigation for you.
And our newest method of bot detection:
- Patterned Behaviour means bot detection is frequency based and any clicks from the same contact which go from one link to the next link in under 100 milliseconds are flagged up and recorded as bots
When your email design is created, we insert a hidden link into the body. This is added as bots tend to access every link, they can find in an email to test if they can access them. This means if a bot tries to access the hidden link, we can capture them.
From here we know the sources IP and UserAgent. When exporting campaign results you are able to see IP addresses and you can recognise if an IP is clicking on your clinks frequently. To be able to block it's activity in future emails and campaigns, it is essential that the UserAgent and IP are perfect match.
not all bots will access the hidden link in your email. This is due to the advancement of bot technology.
We automatically filter bots out for you and block the IP and matching UserAgent which are put into tables within our database, for any future campaigns the tables are looked at, and any matches are left out of your clicks and opens in your campaign results.
How This Will Affect You
With our newest method of bot removal, you may possibly see a drop in your Click Through Rates but not to worry, this will be a more accurate reflection of engagement and we include the feature of exporting bot clicks in a campaign as these are not included in the main campaign results.
