Detecting Automated Email Interactions

Browser

Email bots crawl email content to identify and prevent links to malware or phishing attacks from entering a recipient's inbox. Bots interacting with emails can trigger false events. When bots traverse emails, they interact with links which trigger the associated tracking code. Similar false events can be triggered when email clients pre-fetch content and store it on their servers to improve the user experience by reducing load times. When possible, information about the bot is captured to help organizations distinguish false events from real events triggered by recipients.

By filtering bot activity, organizations can gain a clearer picture of genuine recipient engagement with emails. With more accurate event data, organizations can identify which emails resonate most with their audience and make data-driven decisions about email marketing strategies.

Configuration

To configure this feature, ensure users have access to the Bot__vod field on the Email_Activity_vod object.

Using Bot Activity Capturing

When there is an Email Activity that Mailgun detects to have been triggered by a bot, the Bot_vod field on Email_Activity_vod object is populated with one of the following values:

apple - Indicates an Apple MPP bot
gmail - Indicates a Gmail bot
generic - Indicates an unknown bot (most likely a firewall or anti virus scan)

This field is blank when Mailgun does not detect bot activity, indicating the recipient interacted with the email.