Bot Filtering & Apple Mail Privacy Protection Compliance in Zoho Campaigns

Bot Filtering & Apple Mail Privacy Protection Compliance in Zoho Campaigns

Dear Campaigns Users,

The wait is over! We’re excited to announce that the enhanced bot filtering feature is now live in Zoho Campaigns. This update brings greater accuracy to your email campaign reports by distinguishing real user engagement from automated bot activity.


What are bot opens/clicks?

Bot opens/clicks are interactions triggered by automated software rather than real users. These bots often scan emails for security purposes, leading to inflated engagement metrics. You may notice multiple opens/clicks from a single contact—even if they never actually interacted with your email.


Why does bot filtering matter?

Bot-generated activity can skew your campaign analytics, making it harder to measure true engagement. With our advanced bot filtering, you’ll get a more reliable view of your audience’s response, allowing for better decision-making.


Key features of bot filtering in Zoho Campaigns

  • Easy toggle: Enable or disable bot filtering with a single switch under Settings > General Settings > Bot Filter. The feature is enabled by default to ensure data accuracy from the start.

  • Transparency: Your reports will indicate whether bot filtering is active, keeping your analytics clear and reliable.

  • Detailed reporting: Whether the filter is enabled or disabled, your campaign reports will display:

    • Reliable opens/clicks (verified engagement by individuals)

    • Bot opens/clicks (automated activity)

    • This dual metric system provides a clearer understanding of your campaign performance.

  • Apple MPP tracking: Reports now include a dedicated metric for Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) opens, helping you analyze the impact of Apple’s privacy policies on your data.



Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP)
  

Apple Mail users can enable Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which prevents senders from accurately tracking email opens. When activated, Apple Mail pre-loads tracking pixels automatically, making it seem like all emails are opened—even if they aren’t.

This results in inflated open rates and makes it challenging to distinguish real user engagement from automated activity.


How Does Zoho Campaigns Address This?

Zoho Campaigns provides MPP Opens as a separate metric in your reports. Using intelligent data modeling, our system helps you assess engagement more accurately, so you can measure campaign success despite Apple’s privacy updates.


How to Enable Bot Filtering in Zoho Campaigns
  

Step 1: Locate the Bot Filter option
Go to Settings > General Settings to find the Bot Filtering setting.






Step 2: Enable or disable bot filtering

  • Enabled (default): Your reports will prioritize real user engagement while still displaying bot activity separately.




Disabled: Your reports will show total opens/clicks (including both human and bot activity), with bot metrics available for comparison.



Step 3: Confirmation pop-up when disabling bot filtering

If you choose to disable bot filtering, you will receive a confirmation pop-up explaining that this may affect segmenting and automation workflows.





InfoNotes: With the enhanced bot filtering now active, you may notice a more accurate reflection of your open and click rates. Prior to April 1st 2025, campaigns filtered out some bot requests to show open rates. Now, with this update, our bot detection has been significantly improved, allowing us to identify a greater number of bot interactions. Consequently, you might observe a slight decrease in open and click rates compared to previously inflated numbers, as we now detect and filter more bots than before

  • Apple MPP opens will be included in segments and workflows by default.

  • Campaign reports from April 1st 2025, onward will show updated data, including reliable opens, unreliable opens, and bot opens based on bot filter settings.

  • For past campaigns, we have filtered out the bot engagement by default, hence the campaign reports will show reliable and MPP opens.
  • New filters in the Contacts section allow for deeper analysis of reliable opens vs. bot opens.

  • Changes to bot filtering settings will be tracked in Audit Logs.



    • Bot engagement data is now available when exporting campaign reports.


    We’re Here to Help!
      

    We believe this update will give you more confidence in your email analytics and help you optimize your campaigns with precision. Try it out, and let us know how it works for you!

    Happy email marketing!

    Best regards,
    Zoho Campaigns


    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip of the week 03 - Sending emails in batches

      Today's marketers not only want their email marketing to be efficient, but also smart. For an email campaign, you may think you have all the essential elements for lead conversion—a big mailing list, an attractive template design, and the most-engaging message content, but after hitting the ‘send’ button, you may not get the expected conversions. Wondering why? Here’s one of the major reasons. Many marketers miss out on sending the email campaign the right way. Did you know that you should not be
    • Tip of the week 04 - Know about your recipients' 'prime open time.'

      In today's market, the importance of customer behavior is astounding, with a vast amount of research and resources going into finding how customers make decisions. The process of persuading your customers to open your email and click on your call-to-action becomes easy when you understand the psychology behind their behavioral traits. Time to turn into a psychologist! Let's get to the basics—you want your emails to resonate well with your recipients. So, what's the primary thing involved here? It's
    • Zoho Campaigns Expert Diaries on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

      Hi email champs,  As email marketers, we find great lessons in each other's works—be it the subject lines that worked good, the design that was received well, or the CTA that had the maximum clicks. Email marketing encompasses a wide variety of topics spanning everything from creation and design to development and deliverability.  Here's when we from the Zoho Campaigns team found the need to build an email marketing community comprising of seasoned marketers and email geeks who can help each other
    • Email Deliverability Tip #3: Seal the deal with the preheader

      In the last post, we learned about the subject line. Today we'll be learning about the preheader. A preheader is the short text that follows the subject line in an email. The preheader is designed to hint at what your email message is all about. A good preheader should act as a second subject line and convince your contacts to open the email. Now, let's learn the best way to craft a preheader. Your subject line and preheader should work together and accurately convey the gist of your email. Keep
    • Tip of the week 15 - Add subscription-preferences option. Drive more engagement.

      If crafting content for emails, getting creatives done, and running email campaigns is your love, then unsubscribes are the heartbreakers.  You can save your emails from being unsubscribed/trashed by adding a proper subscription-preferences option in your emails (works best at the time of signup). Giving subscribers the option to choose what they want to receive from you and decide how often (frequency of the emails) your emails should hit their inboxes will increase the reach of your campaigns manifolds. 
    • Recent Topics

    • Skip Pages - Zoho form

      Hi Team, I need help with skipping pages based on the below logic in Zoho form: If field number of borrowers is 1 and field number of dependants is 0 then do not show page borrower 2 and 3 If field number of borrowers is 2 and field number of dependants
    • How to print blank form and also how to use form offline

      I have created a form in PC and want to use the form in the field to gather information. Can I use the form offline in PC - in case I have no internet access? As a fail safe, I'd like to print the blank form ut just in case the PC form doesnt work for
    • Using Marketing Automation Journey to associate lead record with a campaign?

      Hello, I am trying to push people from a Marketing Automation Journey to a CRM campaign so I can track lead journeys and lead conversions however I am hitting a roadblock. When a lead hits particular scores or does specific actions in marketing automation
    • Expose FIFO COGS in Invoice API

      Currently, in the Invoice API, the line_items array contains the purchase_rate field. Unfortunately, this purchase_rate field is the Cost Price of the Item, not the FIFO cost journaled into COGS for that sale. There seems to be no current way to get the
    • Drag-and-Drop Customization Interface for Help Center in Zoho Desk

      Hi Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. We’d like to submit a feature request regarding the customization of the Help Center in Zoho Desk. 🔧 Current Limitation: At present, Help Center customization options are quite limited through the Zoho Desk
    • hide resolution from help centre

      to my surprise, i just found out that the resolution text is public in the helpcenter, even if 'notify customer' is off. is there a workaround to that? how do others deal with this? How zoho support does this and I don't think its used by Zoho in the first place. the resolution is meant to be private, not public
    • Stop selling out of stock Items.

      Hi I have been using Zohobooks for a around 8 month now. I am not involved in selling process but my staff cant stop selling product which they do not hold in stock, this is a big headache for me as physical count never matches what is shown on the books. 
    • Importing New Items to be Added to Existing Item Group

      How to use the import sheet to import new items to be added to an existing item group. The import gives me an error that the item group name already exists and won't proceed. If it's possible, how should my import spreadsheet should look like?
    • ShipStation and Zoho Inventory

      Hello, I am looking to sync zoho inventory with shipstation ZOHO INVENTORY           SHIP STATION Sales Order  ==>  create ORDERS INVOICE  <==    Shipments What exactly does BETA mean on the Shipstation connector?  This is required for me to sign-on in the next month. Thanks in advance for your efforts
    • Condolences and Prayers Following the Ahmedabad Plane Crash

      Dear Zoho Team, We were heartbroken to learn about the tragic plane crash that occurred today in Ahmedabad, as reported in the news. On behalf of our entire team, we want to extend our deepest condolences to everyone at Zoho and across India who may have
    • Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest – May 2025

      Hello everyone, Welcome to this month’s Zoho Developer Community Digest! From fresh product insights to hands-on tech sessions and standout community threads, there's plenty here to keep your ideas flowing and your skills sharp. Be sure to explore our
    • Timesheet in project not visible to invited users.

      We are using Zoho Projects and have enabled the client portal so our clients can access both Projects and Timesheets. However, while the client can see the project, no timesheet entries are visible. How can we resolve this issue?
    • Scheduled outbound calls

      How do you mark a scheduled outbound call as complete? I see no way to change the status.
    • How to see exact clicked links in CRM from Zoho Campaigns ?

      Hi, I'm wondering how I can see the clicked links from an email sent from Campaigns when I'm in a campaign in the CRM module. I can see the number of clicks but I need the sales team to be able to see which link has been clicked by a prospect or contact.
    • Email parser rule will only parse emails with an exact match? What madness is this?

      I finally got myhead around deluge and scripting, but wondered why my parser wasn't working. (https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/extract-11-digit-number-in-any-position-from-enail-subject) Problem: There are *zero* characters or phrases that
    • How to add a fee based on payment method

      I currently accept both ACH payments and credit card. I want to add a 3% fee to a number of my subscription plans if the customer chooses to use a credit card (and not ACH/checking). How do I do this? Is there an in-built feature, or would i have to create
    • Condolences and Prayers Following the Ahmedabad Plane Crash

      Dear Zoho Team, We were heartbroken to learn about the tragic plane crash that occurred today in Ahmedabad, as reported in the news. On behalf of our entire team, we want to extend our deepest condolences to everyone at Zoho and across India who may have
    • CRM Analytics - Elegant Comparator

      Anyone noticed a wierd thing on the Elegant Comparator on CRM... Compare Among - Time Period - Last 6 Weeks... only 5 weeks show Compare Among - Time Period - Last 5 Weeks... only 4 weeks show Compare Among - Time Period - Last 4 Weeks... only 3 weeks
    • Copy Templetes from one module to another in Zoho Books.

      Hello, I have created a Custom Module in Books for GST Invoice. I can see only 1 Invoice Templete over there. Can we clone or copy Invoices Templetes from Sales Module of Books into Customer Module.
    • Enhancements in Bookings browser extension

      Greetings from Zoho Bookings! We're here with another update to make your scheduling even quicker. We have enhanced our browser extension with three significant features: Copy slots to email Gmail integration LinkedIn integration Copy slots to email This
    • Some notes are shown as Not Synced

      I'm not sure why this happens but it's a weird little bug I noticed. I have two notes I believe that has that weird icon shown in the screenshot that shows that it's not synced even though the notes do sync properly. Manual syncing doesn't remove the
    • Power of Automation :: Auto-Color Tasks in Gantt chart based on values in Picklist field.

      Hello Everyone, A Custom function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:-
    • Zoho CRM record in blueprint unable to initiate any form of approval process

      My business case As a penetration testing company, we have engagements that need to follow a set path, from “to be scheduled” to “assigned to tester” to “regulatory documents sent” to “testing in progress” to “report delivered”. On this path, a particular
    • Edit Project Number?

      Hi all: We just signed up for a trial of zoho one, which includes ZoHo Projects. We've noticed there was a 'dummy project' preloaded in projects to help familiarize yourself with the software. We've created a couple of our own projects now but noticed since the dummy project was preloaded, our projects start with number 2 then 3, sequentially. Since it seems we will be keeping zoho past the trial, If we delete the dummy project, how do we get our own projects renumbered, beginning with 1? We'd like
    • Tip of the Week #57– Reply faster with saved response templates!

      Ever find yourself typing out the same email reply over and over again? It's time consuming and eats productive work hours. With shared response templates, you and your team can create pre-composed messages to quickly respond to common queries — saving
    • Connect MySQL database to Zoho sites

      Hi! Is there a way to connect a MySql database with Zoho sites. So the user input are stored in and dinamic data is fetched from the database? Regards, Mihály
    • What’s new in Zoho RPA: Cross-platform automation, OCR, and more!

      Zoho RPA is now included in Zoho One Zoho RPA is now part of the Zoho One suite, bringing unified automation to your entire business ecosystem. You can now automate UI-based tasks across Zoho apps and third-party systems too. From processing sales orders
    • New in CPQ: Create dynamic actions in Product Configurator (PC), clone PCs and Price Rules (PRs)

      Configuring product combinations just got enhanced. Zoho CRM's CPQ system now supports dynamic actions based on multiple base products. Additionally, you can now clone configurations for both Product Configurator (PC) and price rules (PRs). Dynamic actions
    • Beyond Email: #2 Connect better with Contacts

      After successfully creating a 'Welcome & Setup' event using the Calendar, Sarah is eager to invite her team members to participate. For a smoother communication experience and easy access, Sarah wants to store their information, ensuring quick reference
    • Integrate MS Teams with Zoho CRM for faster collaboration

      Availability Editions: Standard and above DCs: All Release status: This feature has been released for all users in all DCs. Help resource: Microsoft Teams integration Hello everyone, We're adding MS Teams to our lineup of CRM chat integrations—Cliq, Slack,
    • What is New in CRM Functions?

      What is New in CRM Functions? Hello everyone! We're delighted to share that Functions in Zoho CRM have had a few upgrades that would happen in phases. Phase 1 An all new built-in editor for better user experience and ease of use. ETA: In a couple of days.
    • Subforms and Reports

      I am trying to do a report that shows various data from subforms. eg I want a report that shows what Bill Status are Approved Required. Or show the status of all bills. It doesn't look like Zoho Reports picks up information within reports. Is there another
    • Pass variables to Zoho Desk via URL to create a fast new ticket landing page

      We are integrating our phone system into Zoho Desk. Currently when a helpdesk agent answers the phone, a soft client opens a new tab with zoho desk at the new case page. https://desk.zoho.com/support/companyname/ShowHomePage.do#Cases/new We would like
    • 【Zoho CRM】アナリティクス機能のアップデート:ウォーターフォールの導入

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中からアナリティクス機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 本記事は、以前紹介された機能に新たに追加された機能です。 以前の記事:https://support.zoho.co.jp/portal/ja/kb/articles/zoho-crm-visualize-your-data-with-a-new-set-of-charts-treemap-butterfly-sankey-and-cluster-charts
    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - Creator for the Finance Industry

      Hello Everyone! The Learning Table Series is a free monthly webinar that runs for around 45 minutes. It's offered to our Community users and aims to provide a dynamic learning experience by demonstrating how Creator can be used as a solution for various
    • Webhook - Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request

      Hello, I am trying to set up a webhook to connect with an automation software but I receive the following error from Zoho: Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request I have tried testing it on webhook.site as well and receive the
    • Automated Shopify adjustment problem. "An inventory adjustment has been created by the system to set the initial stock from Shopify"

      Has anyone noticed issues since the Shopify Sync has been updated recently? If you sync with Shopify, check to see if there are automated adjustments for old products that keep recurring. We have this problem for 6 SKU's that Zoho is doubling the stock
    • Best website platform to sync to Zoho Inventory

      Anyone like to suggest the best website platform for syncing to Zoho Inventory? We DO NOT want to sync stock, only orders. Shopify - not an option as we have more than one website and Shopify requires 2 accounts and Zoho will not sync with 2 different accounts. Magento and WooCommerce both sync via Kloudconnectors - does anyone have any experience with this? I have trialled it and there are flaws - eg purchase order numbers are not populated. Discussion welcome!
    • Include product images in data sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Inventory

      Currently the item image does not sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Inventory when using the internal Zoho sync functionality. This requires users to manually update the item image in Zoho Inventory for products created in CRM and vice versa. Including the
    • Show ordered quantity on packing slips and invoices

      Hello Is there any way possible to show the original ordered quantity of an item (as recorded in the sales order) on subsequent package slips and sales invoices, so that these documents can show the customer the ordered qty vs the qty being currently
    • Next Page