Possible bot based on activity log

[Kim_Gandy1]

How would you explain an email is sent, clicked, then delivered all within 2 minutes, according to a user's activity log? Is this a possible bot? 2018-03-22_1613

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Kim,

When you send a smart campaign to yourself, you can be sent, receive and click the email in less than 2 minutes. I think that this is not enough to characterize a bot in fact . Suffice that you send the email to someone who is not doing anything else that sorting and browsing through emails. A bot would have multiple clicks in the same duration.

-Greg

[Kim_Gandy1 · Accepted solution]

Grégoire Michel​, would it be any indication of a bot if the user's activity log consistently shows sent, opened, delivered, in that order? 2018-03-23_0906 Also, note the timestamp with seconds. 2018-03-22_1613

[Grégoire_Miche2]

Hi Kim,

yes, very likely.

-Greg

[Kim_Gandy1]

Can you help explain how an email can be clicked before delivered?

[Grégoire_Miche2]

If a bot is handling it, the 2 events will occur in a very short time. But they are registered in Marketo through 2 very different mechanisms:

• The open is detected through the download of a pixel image
• The click it detected through the landing on the branding server

The timestamp recorded in Marketo therefore depends mainly on factors such the Internet latency (for the image download or the click detection) and the speed processing it in Marketo infrastructure.

-Greg