What should you do when active customer emails are suppressed in transactional email tools like SES?
Summary
What email marketers say13Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Customer.io recommends segmenting transactional emails based on user behavior and engagement. This allows you to tailor messages to specific user needs, reducing the likelihood of complaints and improving deliverability. Send targeted and relevant emails to avoid suppression issues.
Email marketer from Gmass shares warming up your IP address and domain is helpful when starting with transactional emails. This demonstrates to ISPs that you are a legitimate sender, reducing the likelihood of emails being suppressed. Gradually increase sending volume over time.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that suppression lists in SES help preserve sending reputation by automatically suppressing sends to addresses that repeatedly bounce or mark messages as spam. Manually removing active emails from the suppression list is fine if recipients want to receive messages, but it's crucial to understand the criteria that caused them to be listed initially. Too many complaints may indicate the messages are not truly transactional or are too noisy.
Email marketer from Litmus emphasizes the importance of consistently practicing list hygiene. Remove inactive subscribers and unengaged users from your sending list to improve deliverability. Regularly clean your list to maintain a healthy sending reputation and reduce suppression issues.
Marketer from Email Geeks expresses concern about casually mentioning complaints, advising it would be useful to determine how many suppressions were due to complaints, as it could indicate bigger issues.
Email marketer from Reddit recommends reaching out to the affected customers through an alternative channel (e.g., phone) to understand why they're not receiving emails and asking if they want to be removed from the suppression list. This helps avoid further deliverability issues and maintains customer trust.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests only sending truly transactional mail from the transactional domain/sub-domain to minimize complaints. Consider including a "believe this was sent to the wrong address" function in transactional emails to proactively avoid the dilemma.
Email marketer from EmailGeek Community suggests confirming that the emails being sent are truly transactional in nature. If they're borderline marketing messages, recipients are more likely to mark them as spam, leading to suppression. Focus on delivering value and relevance with each message.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares advice on authenticating your email domain using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to improve deliverability. These authentication methods verify that you are authorized to send emails on behalf of your domain, reducing the likelihood of emails being marked as spam and suppressed.
Email marketer from Stack Overflow suggests handling hard bounces immediately by removing the email address from the active list. For soft bounces, retry sending a few times before considering them as permanent failures. This minimizes the risk of repeatedly sending to invalid addresses, which can lead to suppression.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign suggests avoiding the use of purchased email lists to prevent sending to spam traps and inactive addresses, which can lead to high bounce rates and suppression. Build your email list organically through opt-in methods to ensure you are only sending to engaged subscribers.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog shares the importance of segmenting email lists and removing inactive subscribers to improve deliverability. This prevents sending to addresses that are likely to bounce or result in complaints, indirectly reducing suppression issues. Regularly clean your email list to maintain a healthy sending reputation.
Email marketer from Email on Acid shares advice on implementing a double opt-in process for new subscribers to ensure they genuinely want to receive emails. Double opt-in significantly reduces spam complaints, leading to lower suppression rates. Also, check your IP address isn't on any blacklists.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks advises being wary of removing someone suppressed due to complaints without careful consideration and potentially requiring explicit opt-in. Also, it is important to note that SES suppresses addresses to avoid future mailing problems, separate from recipient mail filtering. Bounces are less concerning; transient bounces can be unsuppressed, but permanent bounces will re-suppress. Sending a sudden spike of mail to recipients who haven't received it may cause delivery issues.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests that some ESPs suppressions can be problematic and that re-enabling folks should be done carefully. Maybe even sending out letters to folks or having them confirm their address in the office.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains the importance of maintaining a good sender reputation to avoid suppression issues. Sender reputation is influenced by factors such as complaint rates, bounce rates, and spam trap hits. Focus on building and maintaining a clean email list, authenticating your email, and providing valuable content to protect your sender reputation.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that if active customer emails are being suppressed, investigate the reasons for suppression, such as bounces or spam complaints. Implement a system to automatically remove addresses from your list that trigger suppression to protect your sender reputation. Also it is key to actively monitor your bounce and complaint rates to proactively address problems.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests creating a help page and displaying a banner on the app/site when users authenticate, informing them about email delivery issues and prompting them to update their email or read a help article. This forces users to actively request suppression removal or provide an alternative email address.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from SparkPost explains setting up feedback loops with major ISPs to receive real-time information about complaints. Use this data to automatically remove users who mark your messages as spam. Regularly monitor feedback loops to identify and address deliverability issues.
Documentation from Mailjet explains that you should set up a system to automatically unsubscribe users who bounce or complain. This prevents further attempts to send to those addresses, avoiding suppression issues. Regularly monitor your bounce and unsubscribe rates to identify any problems.
Documentation from SendGrid explains that you need to determine the type of suppression (bounce, block, spam report, etc.). Each type has different implications and requires specific handling. Implement a process to automatically remove recipients from your sending list when they are suppressed.
Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains monitoring bounce and complaint rates using Amazon CloudWatch to detect and address deliverability issues proactively. Set up alarms to notify you when bounce or complaint rates exceed predefined thresholds. Take immediate action to address the root cause of these issues.
Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that you should analyze bounce and complaint feedback to identify the root cause of suppression. Implement mechanisms to prevent future bounces and complaints, such as improving email content and targeting. Consider using Amazon SES's feedback loop to automatically process bounces and complaints.