In years past, security Bots and Firewalls were a problem that mostly affected marketers working in the healthcare and financial services industries. However with recent Gmail and Barracuda updates, false reporting is becoming more prevalent and we’ve even heard reports of Gmail triggering open events for >50% of their emails as they scan and categorise the emails before passing them on to the intended recipient.
So what’s our solution to email bots?
Well, the team at Kulea HQ has put their heads together, and created our new Bot Buster technology. The Bot Buster acts as an optional filter that not only identifies suspicious bot activity based on behaviour and email response times, but also allows you to remove that behaviour from your reports and marketing automation workflows.
The solution is boiled down to a simple check box. Would you like to have the Bot Buster on or off?
If off, you’ll see higher open and click rates, as the result of bot activity
If on, you’ll get lower open and click rates, but more accurate campaign reporting and effective automation.
Bot Buster off
Suspicious events are email open and email click events that have taken place before we have received the email sent event i.e. the email has been opened/clicked before the email has been received by the intended recipient. Suspicious events can be viewed in a contact's behaviour timeline, and look like this...
Note how the email has been read 4 seconds before it has been delivered. This is a strong indication that it's a bot reading the email.
Suspicious open and click activity will still be reported in your campaign KPIs, and will still trigger marketing automation journeys. As suspicious events are flagged (as above) you can make an informed decision on whether you wish to switch the Bot Buster filter on or leave it switched off.
Bot Buster on
All suspicious events will be ignored. They will not appear in a contact's behaviour timeline, trigger marketing automation journeys, or be reported in your campaign KPIs. For this reason, you should expect open rates to reduce when the Bot Buster filter is switched on.
Please note that for now, the Bot Buster filter is accessible at the bottom of your owner account settings (accessible by clicking your avatar/logo in the top right corner of your Kulea interface) as a check box, under your sender settings. In the future, the switch will be migrated to the main dashboard.