Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

Sreekanth_Reddy
Marketo Employee

Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

Since we launched the Email bot activity filtering feature on May 12th, 2021, we have seen tremendous adoption and following are some interesting stats:

 

3500+ customers have enabled and using this feature

Avg. 2Million+ bot activities per week are being captured (across all customers)

1500+ customers receive more than 100 bot activities every week

 

We have curated a few FAQs w.r.t to this feature in this link. Although these are great numbers, we totally understand there is a lot more to be done. For the next version of this feature, we are researching on what are the most common patterns that can help us identify an activity as a bot activity. So far in my discussions with few customers, following are few common patterns that were highlighted:

  • Open and clicks are being logged before Email delivery
  • Clicks and opens are nearly at the same time
  • Clicks and Opens are logged within the same minute from the delivery
  • All links click within an email happening nearly at the same time

I am curious to know what all other patterns you have observed to identify a bot activity, that you would want Marketo to consider introducing in the next versions

 

5 REPLIES 5
Vinay_Kumar
Level 10 - Community Advisor

Re: Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

Clicked link in email, but not opened email.

AndrewWalkerDS
Level 1

Re: Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

I don't believe we can say clicks without opens is 100% a bot pattern though. Here is a screenshot of this pattern on an email I sent myself in Outlook. Outlook clients do not download images by default. I can read the email and click on it, but no open activity will be logged since the pixel tracker was not downloaded. I can click on one of the links in the email and Marketo will track the click activity without the open. This is human activity and shouldn't be filtered out. 2021-09-24 16_49_46-Andrew Walker - DS.png


Vinay_Kumar
Level 10 - Community Advisor

Re: Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

That's correct. Here, we need to use constraints like Min number of times, Date of activity, etc. 

AndrewWalkerDS
Level 1

Re: Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

Another pattern I have observed is when sending an email to multiple email addresses at the same domain, the patterns you have noted above regarding timing of the open / click will also happen across every recipient with the same email domain.

Sreekanth_Reddy
Marketo Employee

Re: Filtering Email Bot Activity Feature Updates

Hi Everyone, here is an update of enhancements we made in the March release - https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-blogs/filtering-email-bot-activity-feature-v2/ba-p/322774