Some opens, clicks and opt-outs in your stats may not come from a person. Email security tools and privacy features open emails and follow links automatically, sometimes before the recipient sees the email at all.
What opens or clicks emails automatically
- Apple Mail Privacy Protection - Apple Mail can load the images in an email when it arrives, which counts as an open even if the person never reads it;
- company security filters - tools such as Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Proofpoint and Mimecast open the links in incoming emails to check them for threats, which counts as a click.
What Reply filters out
Reply skips activity that is clearly not from the recipient:
- opens that come in the first few seconds after the email was sent;
- a click that comes within about 3 seconds of the first open;
- opens and clicks from Google's crawler;
- opens from the sequence owner's own IP address.
Other scanners look like a person opening the email or clicking a link, so Reply counts their activity as usual.
Opt-outs caused by scanners
The opt-out link opts the contact out as soon as it is opened. If it is opened less than a minute after the email was sent, Reply first shows a page that asks the contact to confirm. This protects you from scanners that check links on delivery. A scanner that opens the link later opts the contact out, just as a person would.
💡 If several contacts at one company opt out shortly after your email arrives, and none of them replied, a security filter is the likely cause.
If scanners keep opting out your contacts, you can switch to the opt-out text instead of the link. With the text, the contact opts out by replying to your email, which a scanner can't do. See our article on opt-out text, link and unsubscribe header.
⚠️ Make this change at your own risk. It can hurt your deliverability: people who don't see an easy way to unsubscribe are more likely to mark your email as spam, and some email providers expect a one-click way to unsubscribe. If you switch to the opt-out text, we recommend keeping the List-Unsubscribe header on in the sequence settings.
To email a contact again after a wrong opt-out, remove the Opted Out status from the contact.
Signs that a scanner, not a person, was involved
- every link in the email was clicked at the same moment;
- the open and the clicks came within a minute or two of delivery;
- the contact opted out without replying, right after delivery;
- many contacts at the same company show the same pattern.
How to get more reliable stats
- Judge your sequences by replies and meetings first. Scanners can't send a reply.
- Turn off Open tracking or Clicks tracking in the sequence settings if the numbers aren't useful for you. To change the default for new sequences, see Default tracking settings.
- If scanners cause opt-outs, consider the opt-out text instead of the opt-out link. Read the warning above first.
💡 When Open tracking is off, contacts who replied are counted as opened.
Read more about tracking: