Why are emails not being received?

Owned by Michael Kalnicki
Last updated: May 31, 2024 by Joel Terrell
4 min read

There are several types of emails that the Engaging Networks software sends out. If you are having issues with not receiving tests or notifications, or think that you could have better visibility for your campaign emails when they land in your supporters’ inboxes, then read on. We’ll go through each type of email here with some common solutions and general tips.

General tips

  • Read this page about deliverability and how to increase the chances your campaign emails sent to your supporters arrive in the right place at the right time

  • Have you got SPF set up? Check this page and ensure your record is working correctly

  • Have you got DKIM set up? Contact support if not

Campaign emails to supporters

It goes without saying that you have to have permission to contact your supporters, and you should always give your supporters an option to stop receiving emails. But beyond that, think about whether who your contacting is expecting to hear from you. For example, if you haven’t emailed a supporter for years but decide to include them in a mass email, you will potentially see your reputation with email providers such as Gmail fall because many of them may have closed their email addresses down since you last emailed them, or may not expect to hear from you.

Many email providers include old email addresses as traps to gauge whether organisations are contacting them inappropriately, and also supporters have the option to complain by marking the email as something they didn’t expect to receive. When this happens, email providers can cause your emails to be delayed, go into spam, or be blocked entirely.

Therefore, you should manage your supporter data carefully – it’s your data and your responsibility. For example, consider removing supporters from email lists when you can see they are no longer responding. There’s no point in maintaining a large email list if only a small percentage are engaging with you – it’s much better to have a smaller more-engaged email list. You’ll see open and conversion rates are much higher and you’ll have a good reputation with email providers so, when you need to send that urgent email, you can be confident it will be made more prominent.

We have several tools to manage this, from the automatic suppressing of invalid inboxes, to our email engagement scoring system so you can profile your supporters. Take a look at this page on maintaining good email deliverability.

Auto-confirmation (thank you) emails

Thank you emails are sent automatically when someone takes action, or donates. If you think these are not being received, go through the following list:

  • If it’s a donation page, check that the thanks email has a version for the type of donation your supporters are making. If it’s recurring, is there a recurring thanks email?

  • Email to targets will only send emails (thank you emails and target emails) once per supporter per 24 hours. This is so a supporter doesn’t “spam” a target

  • If you are receiving the emails to your work address, ask your IT team to whitelist the email address. They may going to quarantine, due to the nature of the sending process and the sending domain being the same as the receiving. Contact support for a full list of IP addresses to whitelist

  • If you are still having issues, please contact support

Notification emails when supporters take action

  • If you have set these up as custom notifications, check that the conditions are being met for the email to be sent

  • If you are receiving the emails to your work address, ask your IT team to whitelist the email address [email protected].

Email-to-target emails

  • Email to targets will only send emails (thank you emails and target emails) once per supporter per 24 hours. This is so a supporter doesn’t “spam” a target

  • Did the supporter receive the target email instead of the target? If the target email was sent when the page was being previewed (i.e. in demo mode), then by design the target email will be sent to the supporter NOT the target. It’s important not to advertise the demo link to supporters!

  • Using a custom target? Sometimes their inbox may be overwhelmed by a lot of responses, and their email system may automatically block additional emails. This is, of course, beyond our control so bear this in mind before launching a new action. It might be worth letting them know in advance that the emails are coming so they can prepare. Additionally, consider rotating the subject lines so the emails do not look identical (and encourage your supporters to personalise them)

  • If you are receiving test ETT emails to your work address, ask your IT team to whitelist the sending address. They may be going to quarantine, due to the nature of the sending process and the sending domain being the same as the receiving. Contact support for a full list of IP addresses to whitelist.