Understand Open Tracking

Prefetch or Bot Opens in Email Tracking

What are bot or prefetch opens?

When you send an email, your open rate is typically calculated based on a tracking pixel that loads when someone opens the email. However, not all opens come from real people.

Some email providers and security tools (like Apple Mail Privacy Protection or corporate spam filters) preload or scan emails, which can trigger the tracking pixel before a recipient has actually opened the message. These are called bot opens or prefetch opens.

These automated opens can inflate your open rates in other tools. In Bird, we exclude them by default which brings down the open rate as compared to other tool. However, you can adjust this setting on your workspace.

Why are my open rates low in Bird compared to other tools?

In Bird, we exclude prefetch or bot opens by default which brings down the open rate as compared to other tools which include them in reporting by default. This inflates the Opens and Open rate. However, you can adjust this setting on your workspace to include or exclude opens to keep your benchmark.

How to manage prefetch or bot opens in your workspace

To help you track engagement more accurately, you can choose whether or not to count these prefetch or bot opens in your reporting.

To update this setting:

1. Navigate to Marketing > Preferences > Email > Tracking

2. Select Include prefetch opens as shown below