Enhancing Bot Filtering Functionality in Marketo | Community
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PhilKatzman
Level 1
March 16, 2026
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Enhancing Bot Filtering Functionality in Marketo

  • March 16, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 69 views

Marketo filters bot clicks based on IAB lists (known registry of non-human traffic sources/bots) or by identifying proximity patterns (multiple clicks within a short timeframe). However, bot activity has evolved leading to several bot engagements slipping through the cracks and firing off triggered smart campaigns that track link clicks. We recently identified two bot click behaviors we would like the development team at Marketo to investigate and patch:

  1.  Logged clicks on links before “Email is Delivered” logging
  2. Click proximity outside the configurable 0-3 second window but within 30 seconds of email delivery

I am sure multiple Marketo Admins have dealt with false positive click engagements and have had to answer to their teams. This submitted idea within the Idea Portal is to alert the Adobe Marketo Engage development team of the need to tighten up criteria relating to bot click activity.

    3 replies

    Darshil_Shah1
    Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    Darshil_Shah1Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
    March 16, 2026

    Many modern email security tools (Microsoft Safe Links, Proofpoint, Mimecast, Barracuda, etc.) now perform delayed link scanning, which can fall outside that proximity window. That’s why you sometimes see clicks very shortly after the send or even before/around the same time as email is delivered. Having said that, Bot email filtering/scanning could never get 100% accurate as security scanners are constantly evolving specifically to behave like real users, which makes it difficult for platforms like Marketo to reliably distinguish them from genuine engagement.

      C
      Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
      ChristianeRo1Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
      Community Advisor and Adobe Champion
      March 31, 2026

      One of the enhancements I’d like to see is being able to use User Agents or Known IP addresses (from us the customer) to be able to make our own bots lists. Again, as Darshil noted below, this is always going to be tough, but I’d like to see more control on the user side to be able to filter what we know is unreliable to us, the users. 

        derelict_wombat
        derelict_wombat
        Level 5
        April 1, 2026

        Another related feature would be the ability to filer out bots on landing page reports.  Bot visits make the reports fairly useless at the moment and i have to rely on other reporting tools such as Adobe Analytics to understand how the page is performing.  While those tools are perfectly fine and in many cases optimal for that type of reporting it would be great for Marketo to be able to support bot filters for the reports.  

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