Avoid bot clicks with MDirector’s reCaptcha verification system

The reason this can happen on certain occasions is because of the well-known email security bots. They have good intentions, but in carrying out their function, they can seriously harm your analytics. This can lead you to make poor decisions about your strategy .

Having a good email marketing software can help reduce these problems, especially if you use one that has a reCaptcha verification system like MDirector, which will allow you to avoid bot clicks being reflected in your analytics reports.

What is the role of security bots in Email Marketing?

As mentioned above, security bots are a verification method that is built into the various Email Marketing tools. Therefore, although they negatively affect the performance of campaigns, they are a “necessary evil” to guarantee the security of deliveries.

These robots are responsible for checking emails before they reach the recipient to ensure that they are not spam or contain any type of malware. In other words, they are scripts that run in different email clients and what they do is scan links, attachments and content in search of possible threats.

When performing these checks, security bots click on all the links in the email. If there are many of them and all of them are clicked, it is clear. That this is not human behavior. But if there are only two, it is very difficult to discern which ones were clicked by the argentina phone number data user and which ones are part of this security system.

How bot clicks can affect your email metrics

Altered statistics are a real problem in any trigger email: the best examples for your ngo strategy. And Email Marketing is no exception. Therefore, avoiding bot clicks in reports has always been a headache for companies.

The way in which they affect metrics is very varied. But the biggest handicap of an emailing strategy is that many times. During the check, they activate automated email triggers and therefore, the statistics are not realistic . Specifically, bots can singapore data give rise to the following situations that you should keep. Track of in the campaign performance reports:

A.- They alter the number of real clicks and distort the CTR metric

The CTR (Click Through Rate) is the first metric that will be altered in a report after the action of security bots. This indicator refers to the number of clicks a link receives compared to the number of impressions it achieves.

It is obvious that if these security bots click on all the links to check them, these links will also be captured in the report. Therefore, the data on the actual performance of the campaign will be inaccurate and will hinder the company’s decision-making. In such cases, we recommend that you always be guided by the number of net clicks.

B.- Alter the metrics of email marketing-based events

Regardless of what a link is created for, security bots will trigger it. This is why reports from certain automations based on the user’s clicking. Activity will be altered and perhaps with some inconsistencies. The functioning of these flows, however, will not be affected.

C.- They can affect sales

Email marketing is one of the strategies with the highest return on investment. Therefore, being able to differentiate clicks from bots is essential to ensure the good overall performance of certain campaigns, such as those associated with affiliate email marketing with a payout based on clicks (CPC). That is why it is important that you take measures to keep the situation under control.

How to avoid clicks from security bots in your email marketing campaigns

Preventing bot clicks in email can be a laborious task, especially if you don’t have quality and reliable email marketing software. Although it is possible to differentiate and record real clicks from campaigns in different ways, filtering security bot activity manually is not feasible and would take an impossible amount of time.

Manual ways to filter bots are not safe

The most effective way to distinguish fake events from real ones and avoid bot clicks in analytics reports is to use automated software. Failing that, there are also “homemade” ways to do this screening in reports:

• Creating a pixel with a link in the email that. Cannot be detected by the human eye to check how many clicks correspond to bots. However, this practice can trigger antispam filters since some security systems can detect them and classify them as malicious. Which will earn you a trip to the list of dangerous senders.

• Determine the number of actual clicks based on the browser or device used by the user, since bots do not use a physical interface.

MDirector implements a solution to avoid clicks from security bots: the reCaptcha check

If you want to effectively avoid bot clicks in your analytics reports, MDirector has incorporated a reCaptcha verification system into its Email Marketing tool to avoid inflated metrics in your reports. This method traditionally consists of identifying images and audio to distinguish between bots and humans when a link is clicked.

However, in the context of Email Marketing, it can be detrimental to the user experience, since asking users to solve this puzzle every time they click on a link can be very annoying for them. This is where the real value of this MDirector solution lies, since this functionality is invisible to users and does not hinder their behavior or conversion.

How do I enable reCaptcha functionality in MDirector?

This new feature is activated in an MDirector account or sub-account. The reCaptcha system will examine unwritten clues from each user, such as the IP address or cookies active in the browser, without the user being aware of it, so it will not hinder its usability.

It is very easy to configure from the email’s “design” window . In addition, the advertiser can activate the captcha for the entire email or only for a specific link.

1.- Activation of reCaptcha in the entire shipment

The steps to activate the reCaptcha verification system do not require any additional knowledge. Just enter the tool and create a new campaign. After choosing the template or designing the email ,  you will only need to click on the “Validate clicks with reCaptcha”  option located at the top right of the screen.

This will start the verification system for all the links included in the email. This is the quickest way to configure it and, as you. Can see, you won’t need to configure them one by one.

2.- Activating reCaptcha on a specific link

However, sometimes you may be interested in only enabling the reCaptcha verification system on certain links. For this reason, MDirector allows you to activate it only on those links that interest you, without affecting the rest of the links that make up the email.

As with the previous formula, this is done from the email editing window. You just have to go to the “Links” tab , select the link you want to configure and in the dialog window, enable the “Secure link (reCaptcha)” option .