Is Bot activity filter not visible

[Nurture_Ninja]

We have Bot Activity filter enabled under Email section in Admin. I can see a good number of activities recorded there both for IAB list and Proximity Pattern. They both are in a few thousands. However, when I try to create a smart list with 'Clicked link in email', I cannot see the filter 'Is Bot activity = True/False' filter. I also don't see them on email performance reports in Analytics. Thank you.

[uditmathur]

Hi Nurture_Ninja, 

 'Is Bot activity = True/False' is available as a Constrain.

[Nurture_Ninja]

Thank you, I can't believe I did not see it before! 

Now to my next question: I added the constraint as TRUE. 

I see over 1000 emails on the smart list, however, Match with IAB bots list is zero. 

All the emails match with Match with Proximity pattern.

When I inspect the emails, they don't look like bots.

How reliable is Proximity pattern?

On the other hand, we are having some problems currently with bots. it is interesting that there are no matches with IAB bots.

[Jo_Pitts1 · Accepted solution]

@Nurture_Ninja ,

is your bot filter set to log or filter bot related activities?

If it's the latter, you won't see any bot related activities in your data.

FWIW - I also wrote a blog post on an interesting issue with filtering on bot opens rather than removing them. 

https://nation.marketo.com/t5/product-blogs/bot-detection-in-logging-mode-unexpectedly-impacts-open-...

Cheers

Jo

[Nurture_Ninja]

Thank you. My settings are currently set for filter mode for IAB activity.

[Jo_Pitts1]

@Nurture_Ninja , and that's your answer right there!  If they are filtered out by Marketo, you can't expect to find them to filter on yourself.

Cheers

Jo

[Nurture_Ninja]

Thank you. Just want to confirm, does that mean there are no bots in our database? Thanks

[Darshil_Shah1]

You have selected to filter out the bot activity data for the IAB list, right? That means that Marketo won’t log any engagement/activity data that it identifies as the IAB list in the activity log. Alternatively, if you choose to log the bot activities, Marketo would log all the activities (including the bot activities), but mark the ones it thinks are from bots as is bot activity = true, and you can use this constraint in the Opened/Clicked Link in email filters.

[Jo_Pitts1]

@Nurture_Ninja,

more accurately - no detected bot activities in your database from the time you turned on the bot detection in filtering mode.

Cheers

Jo