High Number of Link Clicks to First Link in Newsletter

[emagrosky]

Looking at the email link performance report for our newsletters were seeing an abnormally high amount of link clicks to the first link that appears in the body of the email. (The logo at the top of our emails has a link as well, but that seems to be bypassed).

When we compare the link click data in Marketo to what we're seeing in Google Analytics, the numbers are off. Does anyone know why this is and what we can do to prevent it from happening going forward? 

Note: We do already have the email bot activity filter on. 

Thanks!

[SanfordWhiteman]

To be clear, GA only logs if there’s a pageview and cookies are enabled. It’s not logging actual clicks but only the (possible) result of such clicks.

Also, GA is a well-known tracker so some mail scanners ignore it; Munchkin is not on that same bypass list.

And Marketo logs clicks on binary downloadables; GA does not.

So there’s never going to be a 1-to-1 correspondence.

In any case, as you probably imagine, you’re seeing artifacts of mail scanner activity. Can you prevent it? No. But clicks need to be deemphasized (at best) as a measure of engagement.