Real activity is based on real human interactions. In other words, real activity tracks the actions your subscribers take when interacting with your messaging. Focusing on real activity keeps the attention where it should be – on the people receiving your messaging.
What is real activity and why should it be tracked?
When recipients open an email, they often interact with various security measures like anti-malware software, enterprise security and monitoring software, browser extensions, or antivirus firewalls. Those same systems, meant to keep email secure, may proactively investigate messages, sometimes even clicking on links within emails. While a link has been clicked, the system, not the intended recipient, is being counted in the click rate.
While not all recipients or messages are impacted, in some extreme cases, these non-human clicks can inflate total click rates by up to 10 times the actual number.
Protecting people from malware and bad actors is an important job, but email senders can find that their email reporting data is significantly affected by these systems, compromising their ability to interpret results and make business decisions.
How we identify real activity
Differentiating between real activity and interaction by email providers and privacy software can be complex. We use an algorithm trained on their behavioral patterns to decide what interaction comes from your subscribers and what interaction comes from email providers and privacy software. This kind of differentiation is an art and not a science – it's constantly evolving – but our algorithm is constantly learning and adapting to continually improve accuracy.
All of this tracking is done in real-time. It is not applied to historical data.
There are some behaviors our algorithm looks for to differentiate between real activity and email provider and security software interaction. Some behaviors are immediately flagged as not real activity, like multiple, sustained fast clicks in a short period or clicks coming from a data center, VPN, or other hosting organization. Link clicks on links a human user usually wouldn't follow and a real click followed by one from a hosting organization are also looked at to differentiate types of activity in your messaging.
Note: The percentages in the Frequency column are updated with the most recent information available.
|
Behavior |
Result |
Frequency |
|
Significant Rate Click: The most common detection method, including multiple, sustained, fast clicks in a short period of time |
Clicks of this nature are flagged as NHI. |
Included in 43% of NHI detections |
|
Hosting Organization Clicks: A significant number of clicks identified as coming from a data center, VPN or other hosting organization. |
Clicks of this nature are flagged as NHI. |
Included in 25% of NHI detections |
|
Shadow User Clicks: Clicks on a single link, first by a user and then quickly followed by a hosting organization. |
The initial click is counted as a real click, but subsequent clicks of this nature are flagged as NHI. |
Included in 12% of NHI detections |
|
Bait Link Clicks: A click on a link that humans don’t usually follow. |
Clicks of this nature are flagged as NHI when considered alongside other behaviors and determined to likely be non-human. |
Included in 11% of NHI detections |
|
Unique Links Scanned: Multiple unique links are clicked within quick succession (less than 30 seconds). |
Clicks of this nature are flagged as NHI. |
Included in 27% of NHI detections |
| Known Sources | Opens from well known user agents and/or Email Providers (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc) |
What does Real Activity look like in Sailthru?
You'll see a few different metric names in Sailthru that will show real subscriber activity.
You can also segment subscribers based on real activity so you can connect with the people interacting with your content.
Reporting metrics
Email Summary
Email Summary contains both headline metrics and table metrics relating to real activity.
|
Projected Opens Count & Rate |
The open rate of the recipients whose interactions were not hidden by email providers and privacy software. Calculation: real opens / visible profiles = projected open rate Visible profiles are users whose activity was not hidden by any privacy setting.
|
|
Real Opens & Rate |
The percentage of messages opened or clicked on by a human or "real reader". The interaction is considered real if the open was not pre-cached or if a link in the email was clicked. Subscribers captured in this metric may not be using a specific email provider like Apple, Gmail, or Yahoo. Calculation: real opens / delivered count = real open rate
|
|
Real and Pre-cached Opens & Rate |
The percentage of subscribers whose emails were initially pre-cached but who later took an action that made their engagement real or visible, like opening the email outside a mail app or clicking a link. Unique count and % of pre-cached messages that recipients later clicked on a link and/or read outside of the mail app. Calculation: real and precached opens / delivered = real and precached open rate |
|
Total Real Clicks & CTR |
The total number of Real clicks from all links in a message, includes multiple clicks by a recipient within the same message. CTR is total real clicks / delivered |
Campaign reports
The Campaign reports have Unique, Real, Pre-cached, and Total click and open metrics that can be selected using the Toggle Columns button on the main Campaign Summary page.
| Real Opens |
Unique count and % of messages opened or clicked on by a human. % = real opens / delivered |
| Projected Opens |
Unique count and % of messages opened from recipients whose interactions were not hidden. % = real opens / visible profiles |
| Real and Pre-cached Opens |
Unique count and % of pre-cached messages that recipients later clicked on a link and/or read outside of the a mail app. % = real and pre-cached opens / delivered |
| Total Clicks & CTR |
The total number of clicks & CTR from all links in a message, includes both Real and NHI. CTR = total clicks / delivered |
| Unique Real Clicks & CTR |
The number of Real unique clicks & CTR from all links in a message. CTR = unique Real clicks / delivered |
Stats API
Pre-cached, Real, and NHI click and open data is available in the stats API for blasts.
real_and_precached_opens
|
Unique count of pre-cached opens that recipients later clicked on a link and/or read outside of a maill app. |
projected_open_count
|
Unique count of opens from recipients whose interactions were not hidden |
projected_open_rate
|
Unique % of opens from recipients whose interactions were not hidden |
real_clicks_total
|
The total number of Real clicks from all links in a message, includes multiple clicks by a recipient within the same message. |
real_clicks
|
The number of Real unique clicks from all links in a message. |
Business Intelligence
Real and NHI click event data will be available for reporting using any of the following data sources. Click here for event definitions in the data sources and here for the calculations.
Data sources
- Email and List Stats
- Campaign Stats by Domain and Engagement
- Campaign Stats by Signup Month
- Campaign Stats by Device
- Campaign Stats
- Campaign Stats by URL
- Campaign Label Stats
- Email Stats
- All Profile Stats data sources
|
real_click_count |
Count of Unique Real Clicks - The number of Real unique user clicks from all links in a message. |
|
real_total_click_count |
Count of Total Real Clicks - The total number of Real clicks in a message, includes multiple clicks by a recipient within the same message. |
| real_open |
Unique count of messages opened or clicked on by a human. Real open rate = SUM( real_open) / SUM( Delivered) |
| real_opens_total |
Total count of messages opened or clicked on by a human. Total real open rate = SUM( real_opens_total) / SUM( Delivered) |
| real_and_bot_opens (Real and Pre-cached opens) |
Unique count of pre-cached messages that recipients later clicked on a link and/or read outside of a mail app. Real and Pre-cached open rate = SUM( real_and_bot_opens) / SUM( Delivered) |
| projected_opens | Unique count of messages opened from recipients whose interactions were not hidden. |
| projected_open_rate |
Projected open rate = real_opens / visible profiles. Projected Open Rate is the recommended open rate to use when comparing message performance across multiple campaigns or cells. Projected Open Rate may help you estimate what your open rate could be across the campaign. |
Connect
Both Event Stream and Data Exporter have the following fields:
is_real_open
is_real_click
For both fields, showing True means the click or open is real. Showing False means the click or open came from the email provider or security software interaction.
Segmentation options
Audience Builder
The Email Clicks, Opens, and Sends filter reference allows you to filter for real or NHI activity:
Find or exclude users based on when and how many times they clicked a link within an email, opened an email, or were sent an email.
- clicked will count any email click in the specified date range
- Select the type of engagement for further filtering: Any, Real, or Pre-cached.
- Any will filter for any engagement.
- Real will filter for human interaction.
- NHI will filter for machine clicks on your message.
- last clickedwill identify the user's most recent click
- "ever" will match all users who ever clicked, i.e. clicked one or more times
- Setting date constraints will match users whose most recent click occurred within the specified date constraints
- Select the type of engagement for further filtering: Any, Real, or Pre-cached.
- Any will filter for any engagement.
- Real will filter for human interaction.
- NHI will filter for machine clicks on your message.
- opened will count any email open in the specified date range
- Select the type of engagement for further filtering: Any, Real, or Pre-cached.
- Any will filter for any engagement.
- Real will filter for human interaction.
- Pre-cached will filter for pre-cached opens.
- Select the type of engagement for further filtering: Any, Real, or Pre-cached.
- last opened will identify the user's most recent email open
- "no date constraints" will match all users who ever opened an email, i.e. opened one or more times
- Setting date constraints will match users whose most recent email open occurred within the specified date constraints
- Select the type of engagement for further filtering: Any, Real, or Pre-cached.
- Any will filter for any engagement.
- Real will filter for human interaction.
- Pre-cached will filter for pre-cached opens.
Lifecycle Optimizer
Start a flow based on real open and click activities or real subscriber engagement level, or check for real activity before you initiate an action on a flow.
Entries
Email Opened
Begins a flow when a user opens an email sent with specified a template or engages with a campaign sent to a specific list or label.
- Template A/B variants are identified as such. You may choose to select a specific variant to be used for the entry.
-
Select the Engagement Type for the entry. By default, the Email Opened entry will filter on Unique opens.
-
Unique opens: Messages that were opened, includes both human and machine opens.
-
Unique real opens: Messages that were opened, only includes human opens.
-
Pre-cached opens: A message that was pre-cached by a machine open
-
Begins a flow when a user clicks a link in an email sent with a specified template or engages with a campaign sent to a specific list or label.
- Template A/B variants are identified as such. You may choose to select a specific variant to be used for the entry.
-
Select the Engagement Type for the entry. By default, the Email Clicked entry will filter on Unique clicks.
-
Unique clicks: Messages that were clicked, includes both human and machine clicks.
-
Unique real clicks: Messages that were clicked, only includes human clicks.
-
Unique NHI clicks: Messages that were clicked, only includes NHI (machine) clicks
Engagement
An automatic daily search of your account for all customers whose last activity took place on a certain day, selected as a certain number of days, weeks, months, or years ago.
- Can differentiate between real and pre-cached opens and real and NHI clicks.
- Real opens: Opens by a human
- Pre-cached opens: Opens pre-cached by a machine
- Real clicks: Clicks by a human
- NHI clicks: Clicks based on non-human interaction
-
Checks
Email Opened
The user opened a message sent by a selected step in the flow.
- Select the Engagement Type for the email:
- Unique opens: Messages that were opened, includes both human and machine opens.
- Unique real opens: Messages that were opened, only includes human opens.
- Pre-cached opens: A message that was pre-cached by a machine open
Email Clicked
The user clicked a link in an email that was sent by a selected step in the flow.
- Select the Engagement Type for the email:
- Unique clicks: Messages that were clicked, includes both human and machine clicks.
- Unique real clicks: Messages that were clicked, only includes human clicks.
- Unique NHI clicks: Messages that were clicked, only includes NHI (machine) clicks
User engagement levels
Sailthru offers a setting that allows you to see only real human activity within your user engagement levels. Any reporting that includes Engagement Level metrics will be affected by turning on this option.
Toggle it on under the Business Settings section of the platform.
Note: Be sure to review any existing reporting and/or lists that are using engagement levels before enabling this feature on your account. If the setting is enabled, it will have an immediate impact on reporting and lists using engagement level data today.
You'll see the effects of this setting in the following platform areas:
- Campaign Detail Report - Engagement tab
- Campaign Engagement Report
- Lists
- List Growth Report
- Snapshot Report
- List Stats API
- Business Intelligence - any existing report that is utilizing engagement levels from the List Stats data source or tables.
- Email Events in Event Stream
- User Profiles in Data Exporter
Lists
For a full understanding of this option, see the Real Activity User Engagement Levels documentation.
FAQs
How can I segment my lists using Real & NHI activity in Audience Builder?
Beginning in August 2024, you will have the ability to segment filters within Audience Builder by the new Real & NHI open and click activity. This will give you further segmentation capabilities in targeting the right audience for your messaging.
Is there a plan to limit Lifecycle Optimizer flow entries to depend on Real opens and clicks?
Yes, as part of the Real Activity Segmentation feature launching in August 2024, you will be able to segment Email Opened & Email Clicked entries and check steps by Real and/or NHI activity.
What detail can we share with our partners and our customers as it relates to NHI clicks?
Feel free to share our NHI Clicks User Guide as it gives insight into what NHI clicks are, why they are happening and what Marigold Engage by Sailthru is doing to give the reporting insight needed.
Why are Unique Real Clicks + Unique NHI Clicks not adding up to Unique Clicks?
It's possible for a message to be clicked on by both a Real user and NHI, in this case, the message will count towards both Unique Real Clicks and Unique NHI Clicks, so it's expected that these metrics won't always sum to be equal to Unique Clicks.
To get insight into the number of messages that have had both Real and NHI clicks on them, you can use the following calculation: Unique Real Clicks + Unique NHI Clicks - Unique Clicks
Am I able to see why a specific campaign has a high volume of NHI clicks just by looking at the campaign?
The why is a bit difficult as there could be multiple factors involved. We can help answer the question whether a campaign was affected by NHI clicks or not by viewing the reporting, but as to why a particular campaign has more NHI clicks is a more difficult question. There are many factors like who the audience is? Are they using personal email addresses or work addresses? Do the subscribers have anti-ware software installed? Many of those are more difficult to answer.
I attempted to pull click data from 01/01/2023-12/31/2023, but the total click numbers are not matching up?
Our NHI click detection was not enabled until December 8th, 2023. Real & NHI click data is only available from that date forward. Unique Clicks and Total Clicks are the only click metrics that were previously available as these include both Real & NHI click counts.
Will it be possible to identify which user profiles are generating NHI clicks?
Yes, as we move to identify Real & NHI users across the platform, we will bring visibility at the User Profile level through engagement level updates. For the first release, we focused primarily on reporting visibility, next we’ll be working on how to segment Real users across the platform.
How is CTR and CTOR impacted?
CTR is available for each click metric divided by delivered count. Unique Real CTOR has been updated in Email Summary to reflect Unique Real Clicks / Unique Real Opens.
Will Event Stream & Data Exporter have Real and NHI click data back to December 8th?
Our Connect products will only have the data going forward from the General Release date of January 18th.
