Hey @MarlaM3y,
You’re not alone! A lot of email marketers are having this problem, and there’s a fair bit of advice out there, especially in those posts that @BérangèreL has linked.
A couple of things I’d like to add to the conversation:
- It looks like Gmail updated their Promotions algorithm in Q1 of 2024. You may have users that are Gmail users (or using Google Workspace), and much like we had to adapt to the Apple update a couple of years ago, it’s never simple to work out how to get around changes like this. Some marketers have found success with:
- Split-sending, or batch-sending
- And in fact if we dig further down to our HubSpot roots, there’s a strong argument for creating send-lists by persona and massively changing up the content of the emails
- Reducing the number of images in the email
- Changing up the From/Alias, as well as experimenting with the subject line
- Reducing the number of links in the body
- Split-sending, or batch-sending
- It sounds like you’re 100% right with the Constant Contact bot activity. I once worked with someone who embedded a tiny, single-dot link in the same colour as the footer background which she called the “Bot Link”. A human wouldn’t see or notice it, but bots clicked it. She then removed these from the reports to show true numbers. Such a simple idea, I wish I’d come up with it! If you’re testing other platforms and you’re unsure as to how they deal with bot clicks, this is a sure-fire way to filter that out.
- But remember, some email security platforms click all links before delivering to the sender, so to measure success what you’re actually looking for is a user that clicked all the links once, and then clicked another one(s). My money is on the HubSpot stats.
If you manage to find success in improving your numbers, please do share what worked for you!