Why are my Mailchimp emails showing as delivered but not reaching the inbox, spam folder, or anywhere at all?

Email marketer from Litmus shares that email rendering issues can affect whether emails are properly displayed, potentially leading recipients to delete or mark emails as spam. Ensuring emails are responsive and tested across different email clients and devices is crucial for improving engagement and deliverability.

Marketer from Email Geeks responds that they've seen this happening quite a lot with our users on corporate domains that has microsoft and that when they whitelist our email address the email appears.

Email marketer from SparkPost explains that poor list hygiene can significantly impact email deliverability. Removing inactive subscribers, suppressing unsubscribes, and regularly cleaning the list are essential steps to avoid being marked as spam and improve inbox placement.

Email marketer from ZeroBounce explains that hitting spam traps can severely damage sender reputation and result in deliverability issues. Avoiding spam traps by using double opt-in, regularly cleaning the list, and avoiding purchased lists is essential for maintaining a clean sending reputation.

Email marketer from SendPulse explains that a good sender reputation is critical for email deliverability. Ways to improve sender reputation include consistently authenticating emails, avoiding spam traps, and maintaining low complaint rates. Monitoring sender reputation scores can provide insights into deliverability issues.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that when an email shows as delivered, it only means it was accepted by the receiving server. The issue is likely on the receiving end for numerous reasons.

Email marketer from EmailToolTester explains that proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is crucial for proving the sender's identity and preventing email spoofing. Implementing these protocols helps improve deliverability by ensuring that receiving servers trust the legitimacy of the emails.

Email marketer from Reddit shares their experience where Gmail started blocking their emails despite showing as delivered. The user fixed this by implementing DMARC and closely monitoring their bounce rates and spam complaints.

Email marketer from Mailchimp explains that it's important to understand the different types of bounces to troubleshoot delivery issues. A hard bounce indicates a permanent reason an email cannot be delivered, while a soft bounce is a temporary issue. Checking your bounce rate and understanding the reasons for bounces can help improve deliverability.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign shares that email deliverability issues can arise from various factors, including sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene, and content. They emphasize the importance of maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive subscribers and monitoring engagement metrics.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that in corporate environments, firewalls and email security appliances can silently drop emails even if they pass initial server checks. Whitelisting the sender's domain or IP address on the recipient's end might be necessary.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that after testing a full image based email vs plain text with similar results, compressing the email to below 500kb as the original was over 1M seemed to reach inbox at a higher rate.

Expert from Word to the Wise answers shares that a potential reason for email delivery problems could be due to changes in authentication policies. She goes on to state that it is important to keep up-to-date with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC configurations, as these are essential to preventing email from going to spam or being blocked.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that greylisting is used by some email servers as a spam defense. If a server greylists, they temporarily reject the first attempt to deliver an email from an unknown sender. Legitimate servers will retry, but spammers often don't. This could be a reason for delayed or seemingly lost emails.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that they have seen this happen when it’s a big send from a shared IP pool and what I think is missing just hasn’t been delivered yet and at the smaller level it’s really only happened when it’s a corporate or hobbyist domain with a specific configuration for “silent drop,” It’s quite rare.

Expert from Word to the Wise responds that the lack of bounce messages can sometimes indicate that the email is being silently dropped or filtered before a bounce can be generated. It's important to work with the recipient's IT department or email provider to determine why the emails are not being delivered or generating bounces.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that the "silent delete" or "silent drop" could be a configuration for all email at that email provider, or a spam-fighting technique.

Expert from Email Geeks responds about which domains this is happening at, that most consumer domains don’t throw mail away - or at least make very good attempts to deliver everything they accept, except for Microsoft. At other places it depends on the domain owner whether or not mail is thrown away after acceptance.

Documentation from RFC explains that SMTP servers use response codes to indicate the status of email delivery. A '250 OK' response means the message was accepted, but it doesn't guarantee it reached the inbox. Issues such as spam filtering can still prevent delivery even after acceptance.

Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools explains how to monitor your domain's reputation with Google. Low reputation scores may indicate issues with spam complaints, authentication, or sending practices, which can result in emails being filtered or blocked.

Documentation from Microsoft SNDS explains how to use the Sender Network Data Services (SNDS) to monitor your IP address reputation with Microsoft. SNDS data can help identify issues such as spam traps, high complaint rates, and authentication problems that can affect delivery to Outlook.com and Hotmail inboxes.