Not all clicks come from real users. Some interactions are triggered by automated systems that scan links in emails or SMS messages. These automated interactions can create the illusion of higher engagement, potentially affecting how you evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns.
SmartPush provides a bot filtering feature that helps exclude bot-generated interactions from your analytics data, allowing you to obtain more accurate marketing insights.
In this article, you will learn what bot clicks (also known as server clicks) and crawlers are, and how they can affect your email and SMS engagement metrics.
Understanding Bot Clicks and Crawlers
Bot Clicks
Bot clicks, also known as server clicks, refer to automated interactions with links in emails or SMS messages that are not performed by real users.
These clicks are typically triggered by:
- Email security systems
- Spam filters
- Automated link scanning tools used by email service providers
- Corporate network security scanners
These systems automatically check links for malicious content before the message reaches the recipient. As a result, the link may be opened automatically, generating a click event that does not represent real user engagement.
Crawlers
Crawlers, also known as web crawlers or spiders, are automated programs used by search engines, cybersecurity tools, and other systems to scan and analyze web content.
These programs systematically browse the internet by following links to index or analyze content. While crawlers are primarily used by search engines (such as Google), certain security crawlers may also scan links contained in emails or SMS messages, which can trigger bot clicks.
How Bot Clicks and Crawlers Affect Your Data
Bot clicks and crawlers can artificially inflate engagement metrics, making it more difficult to accurately measure real user interest.
For example:
- Click rates may increase abnormally without reflecting actual user behavior.
- Engagement metrics may appear higher than the true level of customer interaction.
- Campaign performance analysis may become misleading, which can affect marketing decisions.
To ensure more accurate data reporting, SmartPush provides a bot interaction filtering feature that allows you to exclude bot-generated interactions from your analytics data.
Enabling the Bot Data Exclusion Feature
Follow the steps below to enable bot filtering:
- Go to Settings > Data & Others.
- In the Data section, enable the following options:
- Exclude bot interactions from Email
- Exclude bot interactions from SMS
A confirmation window will appear. Click Enable to confirm.
Data Processing After Enabling the Feature
After the feature is enabled:
- The system will process the data within 1 hour.
- Analytics data from the past 30 days will be retrospectively recalculated.
You can review the updated metrics after the data processing is complete.
If the metrics do not change significantly, it may indicate that your marketing data contains few or no bot-generated interactions.
Metrics Affected by Bot Filtering
After enabling bot filtering, SmartPush will exclude bot-generated interactions from all email and SMS open and click related metrics.
This adjustment affects data displayed in the following modules:
- Data Dashboard
- Open count
- Click count
- Other related engagement metrics
- Campaigns
- Open count
- Open rate
- Click count
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Automations
- Open count
- Open rate
- Click count
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Contacts > Segments
- Open rate
- Click-through rate (CTR)
These adjustments help ensure that your marketing analytics reflect real user engagement rather than automated system activity.
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