Multiple email clicks caused by anti spam filter

[Anonymous]

Hi

I've started noticing an increasing number of multiple 'clicked email' events within a minute or 2 of when an email is received and have been told by marketo support that this is a spam filter (possibly a new type of spam filter as I've not come across this until recently) as opposed to a person. So I'm now assuming that anyone who clicks multiple times on an email within a short period of time isn't actually a person, its a spam filter.

The thing is I have scoring set to increase by 10 points for someone who clicks on a link in a mail (they can only go through it once each time) but I need to exclude anyone who clicks multiple times.

As the only relevant constraint associated with 'Clicked link in email' is 'minimum number of times' I've got one scoring rule to increase the score by 10 if they click, then another scoring rule to reduce by 10 if they click 'a minimum of 2 times' within an hour.

Associated with this is that if they rise above a score of 50 (triggered by the score changing from less than 50 to more than 50) then they become an open lead. So if they go through the +10 rule and go over 50 they become an open lead, but if they then go through the second triggered campaign if they have clicked more than once (I'm assuming this is then a spam filter) they go through another rule to reduce their score by 10. But by this time, if they went over 50 points they have become an open lead & the sales person has been notified etc.

Is anyone else experiencing the same? How are you dealing with it? As the campaigns to reset the lead status are triggered, there isn't a way to set them to a certain time (midnight for instance) and therefore change the lead score back and forth from prospect to open lead and back to prospect when the sales guys are sleeping.

Any help much appreciated.

[Chris_Saporito]

Here's one of the original threads on this topic: Spam filters registering clicks? 

We've been seeing this as well and don't have a great solution to fix it. We also use a click minimally to attribute to lead score. The Marketo deliverability expert we have been working with mentioned that the number of "false" clicks can fluctuate based on the sender reputation as well.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Chris, great to know. So if I set the trigger to 'clicks link' and 'visits webpage', this should solve the issue, obviously meaning that I now need to link to a webpage rather than an actual document.

[Chris_Saporito]

Adding the filter for 'visits webpage' does not completely fix the issue. I saw Sanford Whiteman​ elaborate the issues with this in another post but can't track it down.

[Anonymous]

Dammit, I thought that was too easy. I've only been linking to documents (as opposed to webpages) so I can't see in the offending activity histories if they would have registered as visiting a webpage after clicking on the link. And of course these are not people I know so I can't be testing with them. Do you have any experience of what proportion of these filter clicks register as visiting a webpage after clicking a link?

[Dan_Stevens_]

If you decide to take that approach, be sure to include the "date of activity" constraint in your "visited web page" filter:

Re: 'Clicks link in email' activity not accurate

Just be aware that this may not work in all instances.  We're finding in many instances, Marketo isn't logging the "visited web page" activity until upwards of 5 minutes after the click link activity.  Therefore, the trigger campaigns aren't triggering with this filter in place.

Here's some good insight from Sanford Whiteman​:

Big gulf between 'Click Email' & corresponding 'Visit Web Page' activities?

[Anonymous]

Hi Dan

Thanks for your help, so - I've added the filter 'visited web page today'. Hopefully that'll help. This is a real problem eh? Building up insight into lead activity following nurturing mail outs is one of the key indicators of interest and propensity to buy.