What is a click-bot?
A click bot is a software program that attempts to simulate an actual user – by clicking on links, ads, images or other content presented inside an email or web page.
Why? To protect the end –user – check each link to make sure it doesn't lead to phishing or some other malicious end.
Email click-bots run at the spam filter level (before the email actually drops into the inbox of the user) and will click all CTA links. Sometimes, they will click the links multiple times.
How do click-bots affect email campaigns?
In short, they create a false and heavily inflated representation of numbers. Some click-bots have their own user-agent tag, which helps database folks to identify them. But this is just not a reliable method to remove click-bot data.
Does your ESP (email service provider) scrub click-bot data?
A few do a good job. Most do not scrub the data well enough. Sadly, many popular ESPs do not. It's a work in progress and a constant cat and mouse game to identify click-bots. Most major ESP's are trying to filter this 'bad data'. But, no matter how hard they try, the numbers are skewed. Here are some examples from forums and official communications from a few of them.
Constant Contact – "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."
Mailchimp – "Unfortunately, there's no way for us to see if a link has been clicked by a filter or your intended recipient."
How does this affect the insurance marketing industry?
The insurance industry (like almost every other industry) is heavily reliant on email marketing. The tracking on your email campaigns is probably unreliable – unless your ESP or marketing provider has invested and continues to invest into identifying and scrubbing bad click data. Email click-bots are necessary, they protect end-users. So they are here to stay. Eventually, standards will catch up and every click-bot will publish a user-agent and other identifiable information that will help keep the tracking data clean. As of now, there is nothing on the horizon and marketers are left to fend for themselves on how to interpret the inaccurate data.
What about CompleteMarkets?
Back to the conversation I had with the two marketers – they were thrilled with their in-house marketing until our conversation. Unfortunately, their email provider does not own their data (they probably outsource) and therefore their CTR tracking data is just not reliable enough to make any good decisions from a marketing standpoint.
At CompleteMarkets, we are heavily invested in our own Intellectual Property, we manage our data and software and can make changes as needed. We continue to work on scrubbing our data so that our clients can rely on the campaign reporting we provide. It isn't perfect by any means, but we are well ahead of our competitors and intend to keep it that way.
Have any thoughts or questions? Please get in touch at any time.