Can bots or Apple privacy settings inflate my engagement numbers?

Applies to: Admins

Open and click metrics in Endear may not perfectly reflect actual customer engagement. Several factors can cause reported numbers to appear higher than real activity:

For the most accurate view of message performance, use clicks and conversions as your primary signals and treat opens as directional context only.

Opens are the most susceptible metric to inflation. Apple's Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), introduced with iOS 15, pre-fetches email tracking pixels at the time of delivery before a recipient actually reads a message. This means an open can be recorded even if the message was never engaged with, and reported open rates may significantly exceed actual reads as a result.

Treat opens as a directional signal. They are useful for spotting trends across sends but are not reliable for evaluating individual message or subscriber-level performance.

Clicks are a stronger indicator of genuine engagement since they require a deliberate action. However, automated security scanners can trigger link clicks within seconds of delivery. Endear counts every click event and does not filter activity, so some inflation is possible.

Despite this, clicks remain a more trustworthy metric than opens and are your best proxy for real customer engagement.

Conversions are the most reliable metric since a real order is required. Attribution in Endear pairs a message with an order, so in rare cases, inflated click activity from an automated scanner could be associated with a conversion. That said, conversion data gives you the clearest picture of actual business impact from your messages.

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