Seeing Email Performance Clearly: Understanding Nonhuman Traffic in Healthcare Marketing
Key takeaways
- Not all email engagement signals come from real, human interactions.
- Even “good” NHT can distort performance insights derived from email campaigns.
- Thoughtful filtering brings clarity and confidence back to your email campaigns.
NHT has grown steadily over the last several years1 and is now an inherent feature of the healthcare email ecosystem. In the bigger picture, these are security measures that have been developed for good reasons, but they affect marketing’s key performance indicators. Understanding this activity is the first step toward restoring confidence in what your data is truly telling you.
Clarifying the issue: What NHT is — and isn’t
Nonhuman traffic (NHT) refers to email opens and clicks generated by automated tools rather than actual recipients. This activity is typically benign and rooted in security: firewalls scanning links, spam filters validating content, or privacy tools preloading images before a person sees them. These systems are designed to protect users, yet they can create engagement signals that distort performance metrics.
Nonhuman traffic isn’t inherently bad, it’s part of an ecosystem that supports security against bad actors, ensures organizational policy compliance, and provides risk insights. The key in email marketing is to identify and segment this traffic so you don’t misinterpret engagement performance metrics. Automated interactions common in healthcare ecosystems — sometimes considered “good NHT” — aren’t harmful but still inflate metrics and may obscure meaningful insights if not identified and accounted for. For example, Apple Mail privacy features prefetch tracking pixels, which can register that an email has been opened even when the recipient never viewed the message.
To help marketers see the full scope of the issue, it’s important to understand that healthcare systems may scan emails in predictable waves — an early round of link checks within minutes of send, followed by later rounds hours afterward. These patterns resemble human engagement but occur at a scale and speed that real users cannot match.
Understanding its impact: Why automated signals matter
Inbox security tools used by healthcare systems act at machine speed, generating batches of near-instant clicks or bulk scans that can look like strong engagement on the surface. These tools can inflate click rates, skew read-rate interpretations, and make A/B testing less reliable. Automated signals can emerge from different sources: secure email gateways that filter inbound and outbound traffic, advanced protections that detect more sophisticated issues, or post-delivery protections that scan delivered emails for threats missed by gateways. Even essential email authentication protocols that work together to prevent spoofing and ensure sender legitimacy are known to spur these signals. Nonhuman traffic (specifically from bots and security scanners) can also skew the engagement data that send-time optimization relies on.
For brand teams, this means performance dashboards may tell an incomplete story. Inflated open rates can make an email appear more effective than it truly is, while automated link scans may suggest interest that does not exist. When these signals shape decision-making — such as list strategies, content planning, or budget prioritization — they can quietly move a marketing program in the wrong direction.
Recognizing the difference between human and automated email interaction helps ensure every insight reflects true human behavioral patterns, strengthening integrity across the entire email program.
How filtering restores confidence
The good news is that NHT can be recognized and managed. Modern detection methods use behavioral patterns — such as timing, sequence and click frequency — to distinguish automated activity from human engagement. For example, IQVIA Digital identifies NHT when more than one click occurs within a three-second window or when a single link is clicked more than 10 times within the first 36 hours. These rules are reviewed by subject matter experts to ensure that any filtered interactions are truly automated.
Advanced filtering removes automated interactions and strengthens the integrity of your entire email program. When data reflects genuine human engagement, brand teams can compare performance trends more reliably, optimize more strategically, and make decisions grounded in trustworthy insights. In fast-moving digital environments, especially those shaped by complex healthcare dynamics, this transparency brings clarity and confidence to every campaign adjustment.
NHT is here to stay
However, it doesn’t need to cloud your campaign performance insights. When automated interactions are identified and managed proactively, which is how NHT is handled at IQVIA Digital, your data will reflect real human engagement. This understanding will give you a clearer foundation for every decision and reinforce trust in your email campaigns.
Want clearer insight into your email performance? Contact us at IQVIADigital.com and speak with an IQVIA expert to learn more.
References
- Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG). Exploring the impact of nonhuman interactions on email send metrics. 2020 Nov.
