Overview
Monitoring your email performance is critical to increasing replies and booking more meetings. If you're a seasoned sales professional with a strong email domain reputation, you may also be leveraging open or click tracking in specific email campaigns. When you do so, it's important to consider how bots can impact your metrics.
Apollo uses an advanced detection and filtering process to determine whether bots opened or clicked your emails and gives you control over whether you include them in your engagement reporting. The ability to include or exclude bots in your metrics helps contribute to an accurate view of your email performance. However, not all sales engagement platforms give you the option to exclude bots. When you understand what bot tracking is and how it can impact your metrics, you can more accurately identify how your emails are really performing.
What is click and open tracking? Click tracking allows you to track the number of clicks the links in your email receive. Open tracking allows you to track the number of times your email is opened.
You can use click and open tracking on Apollo, but you should use your power sparingly. Only enable open and click tracking if you have a strong domain reputation and are familiar with email deliverability best practices. Even then, Apollo recommends enabling tracking only on specific, time-bound tests. Once you gain the insights you're looking for, you should deactivate tracking to protect your domain reputation and avoid spam filters.
Check out the following sections to learn more about bot tracking and Apollo's approach to bots in email metrics.
What is Bot Tracking?
When you send an email to an inbox, anti-virus or security scanning bots often open, scan, and click through the email to ensure there's nothing harmful in it. Mailbox providers may also prefetch text or images to ensure emails load faster when the recipient views them. These events are helpful because they improve the inbox experience and protect people from spam and malware. However, bots can also inflate your campaign metrics, making it appear that you have a higher open or click rate than you really do.
Most sales engagement platforms don't filter out bot events. When you incorporate bot opens and clicks, even though the recipient may not have actually opened or clicked any links in your email, it results in inflated engagement rates. In turn, this may lead to a misdirected strategy and campaign spend.
But Apollo does things differently. Learn how Apollo handles bot tracking.
How Apollo Handles Bot Tracking
Using an advanced detection and filtering process, Apollo automatically determines if a bot opened or clicked your emails, then gives you the option to include or exclude the bots in your sequence statistics and analytics reports and dashboards.
Artificial bot behavior can exaggerate your open and click rates, leading to an inaccurate representation of your prospect's engagement. With control over your engagement tracking, you can determine whether bots should be included in your metrics. By using Apollo, you can trust that your engagement reports reflect the engagement behavior that you want to track.
Filter Your Reports
You can choose whether to include bot opens and clicks when you check your sequence metrics or run reports on Apollo.
Sequences
- Launch Apollo and click Sequences.
- Select your sequence.
- Apollo shares sequence status and email tracking statistics per individual contact.
- Under email tracking statistics, bot opens and clicks are included by default. Toggle off Include bots to exclude bots.
You have now filtered your sequence metrics. To learn more, check out Report on Sequences.
Reports
- Launch Apollo and click Analytics.
- Click Create report.
- Select an email metric for opens or clicks:
| Includes bot opens | Excludes bot opens |
|---|---|
| # emails opened (unfiltered) | # emails opened |
| % emails opened (unfiltered) | % emails opened |
| # emails clicked (unfiltered) | # emails clicked |
| % emails clicked (unfiltered) | % emails clicked |
You have now filtered your analytics reports. To learn more, visit Analytics Reports.
Next Steps
- Use sequences to orchestrate your outreach campaign, and view sequence statistics knowing you are engaging with trustworthy, actionable data.
- View and respond to emails from prospects directly on Apollo, and use email analytics to monitor your performance.
- For detailed reports, check out Apollo's analytics reports and dashboards. Use analytics to customize your reporting and dig into the details of your engagement.