Objective
This article will provide some guidance around filtering bot traffic through Segment.
Product
Twilio Segment
Environment
Segment Console
Procedure
Segment doesn't have an out of the box bot filter. As such, you generally have two options:
Handle the filtering at a destination-level: Some of Segment’s destination partners, like Mixpanel, filter bots automatically. Whereas others such as Hubspot allow you to set up bot filtering manually. The advantage of filtering bots at a destination level is that it allows you to implement a robust, easy-to-maintain solution. However, as it pertains to Segment, the downside is that bot traffic will still make it to Segment, affecting your MTU count.
Write custom logic that suppresses bot activity from being sent to Segment: if you want to prevent bot traffic from making it to Segment in the first place, another option is to write your own custom code. The logic, in pseudo-code, would look something like this if you know a particular characteristic of the bot traffic to filter out, such as the userAgent:
var robots = [useragent1, useragent2] if ! window.navigator.userAgent in robots // send analytics calls analytics.track
The benefit here is that you would be able to limit the impact that bots have on your MTU count. On the flip side, it’s much harder to implement and maintain a custom filter.
Additional Information
More details can be found on our guide below: