If you’ve noticed a change in the way your email campaign metrics look—especially fewer opens or clicks—don’t worry. It’s not your audience ignoring your messages. What’s actually happening is something behind the scenes to make your reporting more accurate: bot filtering.
Let’s break it down.
What Are Bots, and Why Do They Click on Emails?
Today, a lot of internet traffic comes from bots—automated programs that perform tasks at lightning speed. In the world of email, bots are often used by security tools to protect people’s inboxes. These tools scan emails for malicious links before the person even opens the message.
To do that, bots will:
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Open the email
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Click on some or all links inside
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Follow the links through any redirects
All of this can happen within seconds of the email being sent.
The Problem: Inflated Metrics
When bots engage with your emails like this, they can create false opens and clicks. It might look like a real person is interacting with your email when it’s actually just a security system doing its job.
That means your email stats might show more opens or clicks than are actually happening—making it harder to understand how your campaigns are really performing.
Our Solution: Bot Filtering
To fix this, we’ve added smart filters to remove bot-generated activity from your email metrics. This helps you get a more realistic view of how your audience is engaging.
Here’s how we’re filtering bot behavior:
1. Super-Fast Actions Get Ignored
Humans take time to read an email before clicking. Bots don’t. If an open or click happens within 2 seconds of the email being sent, we won’t count it.
2. Clicks Before Opens? Suspicious!
If a link is clicked before the email is even opened (which isn’t possible for a human), we won’t count it—especially if it happens within the first 30 seconds.
3. Repeated Actions Too Quickly? Also Ignored.
If someone (or something) opens or clicks multiple times in a row very quickly—like within 30 seconds—we’ll count only the first one and ignore the rest. This helps filter out repetitive bot behavior.
What This Means for You
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More accurate reporting: You’ll see email engagement that better reflects real human behavior.
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No double-counting: Opens and clicks are only counted once—even if tracked in multiple systems.
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Cleaner data: You can trust the numbers when analyzing your campaign performance.
We’ve Tested This Thoroughly
Our team tested a variety of scenarios to ensure the filtering works correctly, including:
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Emails opened or clicked less than 2 seconds after sending
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Multiple clicks or opens within 30 seconds
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Clicks that occur before any opens
Only legitimate interactions are recorded—everything else is filtered out.
Bottom Line
Bot filtering helps you avoid misleading email stats caused by automated security tools. The result? Better data, smarter decisions, and clearer insight into what’s working with your emails.
Have more questions? Reach out to our support team—we’re happy to help!