The symptom is unusually high click through rates in your email sends. We have seen it occur across multiple email service providers and even marketing automation software - and it often occurs when initially sending from a new platform. It happens because some email services have virus checking software that opens links in an email to ensure they are safe to pass through to a users mailbox. Many times the victims happen to send to entities that include schools and hospitals because these entities often have more strict spam filters enabled. If you fall into one of those categories (and sometimes even if you don’t), this could be something you are experiencing on the reporting side of your email program.
At first when you catch this happening, it may require some further investigation. We may want to uncover whether there are multiple clicks for contacts using the same domain; occuring at the same time - which can indicate spam filter interactions.Additionally, we may look into whether clicks are coming from the same IP address and then determine whether they are coming from Barracuda (an email security gateway that filters email traffic to protect organizations from threats and data leaks) - which tells us spam bots may be the culprit.
When you notice clicks that are artificially high because of bot activity - you may see clicks in the hundreds or thousands - there are steps we can take to remedy the issue:
Ideally you will walk away from this post with some language and background for recognizing the issue and how to begin to resolve. We are here to help with the right course of action, so that your deliverability is fully optimized. Happy sending!