📩 The Two-Minute Rule

Picture a small ecommerce team checking their dashboard right after a campaign goes out. Numbers look fantastic. Opens spike. Links light up. Someone slacks “Huge engagement.”

Then they look closer.

The “activity” happened almost instantly, in batches, from corporate security systems and automated link scanners that probe every URL the moment a message lands. Real people did not move that fast, and they definitely did not hit five links in ten seconds.

That’s the problem most senders actually have. Not an engagement problem, a measurement problem.

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The rule
Here’s a simple filter that catches a big chunk of fake signal:

If an open or click happens within the first 2 minutes of delivery, don’t treat it as human engagement.

Why it works:

• People don’t receive an email and instantly tap multiple links.

• Humans don’t generate clicks without any normal reading behavior around them.

• Automated scanners do exactly that, often within 1 to 10 seconds of delivery.

You’ll even see impossible patterns, like link activity outnumbering opens. That can happen when a scanner hits URLs without loading images or tracking pixels the way a person would.

What you see after filtering
Once you remove the first-two-minutes events, most teams notice the same things:

1. Your list is less engaged than you thought
   It stings, but it’s honest. And honest data is the only way to protect your reputation with inbox providers.

2. Your “active” segments were padded by ghost behavior
   That fake boost leads to over-sending. Over-sending leads to complaints, spam placement, and a slow slide in inbox visibility.

3. Your best subscribers finally stand out
   When the noise is gone, the real readers are obvious. They open later, scroll, click selectively, and keep doing it over time.

4. Performance improves faster than you’d expect
   Stop optimizing around scanner-heavy segments, and deliverability typically recovers more quickly across the big providers.

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Why “strong” metrics can still hide decline
A bot can open every send and tap every link, and it will never buy, share, or care. Worse, it can trigger the wrong automation logic and push you to mail more often to the least valuable addresses on your list.

That’s how teams end up trapped: sending more, reaching fewer real people, and wondering why growth flattens even while dashboards look “healthy.”

Where this goes next
A lot of platforms have started rolling out features like “verified” or “human” engagement because the industry is finally admitting what many operators are seeing firsthand: standard opens and clicks are no longer reliable on their own.

By the end of 2026, serious senders will measure human-only engagement by default. Everyone else will be steering with distorted instruments.

If you want a practical next step, implement the two-minute filter, rebuild your segments using post-two-minute activity, and watch how your decisions change when the signals are actually human.

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