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.

Notes: 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

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