Unsubscribing email addresses that have bounced

When you create and send email campaigns, you create recipient lists. These lists contain the email addresses of subscribers that can be selected when you are ready to publish the email campaign. You can have more than one list in the database, and can choose which set of subscribers will receive each campaign. 

To learn how to send an email campaign, see Sending your first email campaign.

In this article, you'll learn how to identify and unsubscribe bounced email addresses to remove them from a recipient list.

Understanding bounced email messages 

When you send email campaigns, the message content is sent to the email addresses in the recipient list you selected for the campaign. Usually, the messages are sent successfully, but there may be cases where the subscriber has cancelled their email account and the message cannot be delivered. Other issues, such as the recipient's inbox exceeding its limit, can also cause messages not to be delivered. When an email campaign message cannot be delivered, the error message is returned to the system. These are called bounce email messages.

When the system receives the message that a message bounced due to the following errors, the email addresses are added to the Global Black List for the site:

mail box unavailable 
user does not exist 

Future correspondence sent to this address is automatically blocked for 45 days unless the user verifies their address in the system before the 45 days elapses by performing a double-opt in.

A double opt-in describes the process when a visitor subscribes to a newsletter or other email marketing messages by explicitly requesting it, and then confirming the email address to be their own. In most cases, the confirmation is performed when the subscriber clicks a link in a subscription confirmation message sent to their email address, which confirms that they can access the email account and they intended to subscribe to receive the messages.

Double opt-in confirmation is always recommended, because it eliminates the chance of spam or abuse where a third-party subscribes using somebody else's email address without their knowledge and against their will. 

Using the Campaign Report to unsubscribe email addresses that bounced

You can use the email campaign report to see the list of email addresses that bounced. These addresses are currently listed on the Global Black List. Using the interface, you can unsubscribe bounced email addresses, to remove them from the recipient list. Follow these steps:

  1. Choose Reports > Summary.


     
  2. In the right sidebar, click the Marketing menu item, to expand that section. Select the Campaign sub menu item.


     
  3. The page updates to display a menu. Use the Choose a Campaign menu to select the name of the email campaign that you want to review and edit.


     
  4. The Campaign Summary page appears with an overview of the statistics related to the marketing campaign you selected in step 3. Click the link to view Email addresses that bounced.


     
  5. The report displays the email addresses are invalid. Use the Action menu at the top of the list to unsubscribe the selected email addresses.

Note: If you do not unsubscribe the bounced (invalid) email addresses, the system will automatically block them for 45 days and will not attempt to deliver messages unless the subscriber visits the site, resubscribes to the newsletter and then confirms their email address by clicking the link in the confirmation message they receive. This process is called a double opt-in.