Bot clicks are distorting your email marketing data. Zoho’s got a fix.
You ran the campaign. Nailed the copy. The numbers rolled in.
But something feels off.
Open rates have jumped. Clicks too. Replies? Still quiet.
If you’ve spotted this disconnect, you’re not alone.
Welcome to the world of bot-triggered engagement. It’s where email metrics can look healthy on paper while telling a completely different story in reality.
At the centre of the problem is Apple Mail’s Privacy Protection. Since its release, it’s been preloading tracking pixels and scanning links in emails before the recipient ever opens them. That means open and click data can be logged without any human interaction at all.
On the surface, this might seem like a minor quirk. But if you rely on email engagement to score leads, trigger automations or evaluate campaign performance, this kind of false data quickly becomes a real problem.
And it’s growing.
According to Litmus, Apple Mail now accounts for over 50% of all email opens. That’s a lot of bot traffic potentially polluting your reports.
A quiet fix with big impact
In response, Zoho has released a new bot filtering feature in Zoho Campaigns. It’s designed to help marketers separate human interaction from automated noise.
The feature works behind the scenes, identifying behaviours that suggest bot activity (such as link preloading or instant interactions across multiple emails) and excluding them from your reports and triggers. It’s a subtle change, but it can have a big impact on the quality of your data.
This update also ensures compliance with Apple’s mail privacy changes, giving marketers more confidence in the numbers they see.
Why this matters for Marketers
If your marketing automation is built around lead engagement, false positives can cause real confusion. You might end up scoring leads too highly. Or triggering a sales call based on a click that never really happened.
The knock-on effects can cost time, effort and credibility with potential customers.
With this new filtering in place, you can trust that your workflows and reports are acting on real signals from real people.
What you can do next
If you’re already using Zoho Campaigns, the bot filtering feature is now live. You’ll find it under your email campaign settings, with the option to toggle it on or off.
It’s also worth revisiting how you measure campaign performance. Instead of relying heavily on open rates, consider focusing more on clicks, conversions or follow-up actions. These metrics tend to be more resilient to automated interference and give a clearer picture of genuine interest.
A changing landscape
Email marketing has always evolved with technology. The shift towards greater privacy is part of that evolution. But it’s also a reminder that traditional metrics can’t be taken at face value anymore.
By staying responsive to these changes, tools like Zoho Campaigns are helping marketers stay grounded in reality, where the story your data tells is one you can actually believe.
Need help making sense of metrics?
We work closely with marketing teams to cut through the noise and get the most from Zoho. If you’re unsure how bot filtering fits into your setup – or how to adjust your campaigns around it, we’re here to help.
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