In addition to the Broadcast Message system, the MMS is set up to send out a variety of other emails (event invitations, survey emails, etc.). For all these tools to work and to keep in contact with members and prospects, keeping an accurate and up-to-date email list is critical.
To make this easier, we provide the Bounced Email report. Messages sent from broadcast messaging (as well as from other modules) to invalid email address are returned to the GroupMessaging@ account. These bounces are then processed, recorded, and presented in the report.
It is important to correct bad emails frequently and keep the percentage of bad emails in the database low. Otherwise, some ISPs will regard sending emails repeatedly to bad addresses within their domain as a sign of spam, and potentially cause them misidentify our server as a spam-source (blacklist).
Some Tips
These bounce messages come from a wide variety of email programs, and some of the messages are confusing and will not tell you necessarily what is happening.
Example: If you see a message that mentions ‘Message Refused’ in it, it might be a bad email address or they might be blocking your message, thinking you are spamming them.
Sometimes messages are blocked because of the content within them (lots of images, lots of links, other reasons...)
Sometimes a recipient host is blocking our server (misidentifying us as a spammer). In the latter case, let us know and we will deal with them.
One very useful piece of information is in italics underneath the bounce message. It shows the date of the last bounce, and the number of times we’ve seen a bounce off this email address. If the bounce count is growing, you may want to deal with those first.
If you see a confusing or meaningless bounce message, and want to check whether an email address is valid, an easy test is just to send them an email from your regular email account. If you get a similar bounce message, then it’s a bad email address. If not, then it’s something else.
You can also use an online email address verifier program to determine if the emai is valid. This type of email verification tool connects to the mail server and checks if an email address is valid.
We are pleased to introduce you to our new member support representative, Brianne Farnworth, who is taking care of the Free Members' Support area and helping your members with their questions.