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Re: Engage, Text Version of Email- Link report showing BOT activity?

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hlawrence
Level 2

Engage, Text Version of Email- Link report showing BOT activity?

I recently made a mistake, sending out an email with the text version not matching the HTML version.  The current Email Link Performance Report showed that the top text link received over 22 times the clicks over the top html link.  Thinking we inadvertently found a way to measure bot clicks, we intentionally placed a unique link at the top of the text version of this week's email. Again, it is receiving over 10x the amount of clicks as the next most link.  Is this BOT activity or could there be another explanation?

Thanks!

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Darshil_Shah1
Level 10 - Community Advisor + Adobe Champion

Re: Engage, Text Version of Email- Link report showing BOT activity?

You're not wrong in thinking that the clicks are likely originating from bots, and while it's certainly intriguing that the text-version links in your emails are receiving significantly higher click-through rates than the HTML links, jumping to the conclusion that they are originating only due to bot activity might be premature. Here are some alternative explanations you might want to consider and account for:

 

Technical issues:

  • Mismatching links: Ensure the text and HTML versions lead to the same landing page. Discrepancies could lead users to click on the text version as a fallback.
  • Email client rendering: Certain email clients might display the HTML version poorly, prompting users to rely on the plain text option.
  • Link tracking discrepancies: Double-check that your email analytics platform measures both text and HTML link clicks consistently.

User preference and behavior:

  • Clarity and conciseness: Text links can often be more concise and direct, especially if the HTML version includes surrounding text or formatting.
  • Mobile friendliness: Text links might be easier to click on mobile devices with smaller screens.
  • Privacy concerns: Some users might be wary of clicking on visually rich HTML elements due to potential tracking or malware concerns.

Also, do you have the bot activity filter turned on? If not, I'd recommend you do so, as it would like help in this situation - enabling you to filter/log bot activities. Of course, it's not guaranteed to catch ALL the bot activities, but having it on would certainly help you to come to a more probable conclusion as to whether the engagements are from bot activities or not.

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Darshil_Shah1
Level 10 - Community Advisor + Adobe Champion

Re: Engage, Text Version of Email- Link report showing BOT activity?

You're not wrong in thinking that the clicks are likely originating from bots, and while it's certainly intriguing that the text-version links in your emails are receiving significantly higher click-through rates than the HTML links, jumping to the conclusion that they are originating only due to bot activity might be premature. Here are some alternative explanations you might want to consider and account for:

 

Technical issues:

  • Mismatching links: Ensure the text and HTML versions lead to the same landing page. Discrepancies could lead users to click on the text version as a fallback.
  • Email client rendering: Certain email clients might display the HTML version poorly, prompting users to rely on the plain text option.
  • Link tracking discrepancies: Double-check that your email analytics platform measures both text and HTML link clicks consistently.

User preference and behavior:

  • Clarity and conciseness: Text links can often be more concise and direct, especially if the HTML version includes surrounding text or formatting.
  • Mobile friendliness: Text links might be easier to click on mobile devices with smaller screens.
  • Privacy concerns: Some users might be wary of clicking on visually rich HTML elements due to potential tracking or malware concerns.

Also, do you have the bot activity filter turned on? If not, I'd recommend you do so, as it would like help in this situation - enabling you to filter/log bot activities. Of course, it's not guaranteed to catch ALL the bot activities, but having it on would certainly help you to come to a more probable conclusion as to whether the engagements are from bot activities or not.

hlawrence
Level 2

Re: Engage, Text Version of Email- Link report showing BOT activity?

Thanks for your reply.  We do have both of the Bot Filters turned on.  If I could bother you a bit further regarding your suggestions:

Technical issues:

  • Mismatching links: In all other emails the text and html versions contained the exact same links.  This was an outlier.
  • Link tracking discrepancies: Right now the html and text links use the same UTMs.  Are you suggesting that we use different UTMs so we can track them separately?

User preference and behavior:

  • All of these suggestions are fair but wouldn't the ratio of clicked first-to-last link in an email remain reasonably consistent between the html and text version, because ...well, people?