Bounces and suppressions
When an email can't be delivered, or a recipient marks it as spam, Kula records it on the email and the contact and stops sending to that address.
Bounces
A bounce is an email refused by the recipient's server. There are three kinds:
| Kind | Examples | What Kula does |
|---|---|---|
| Hard | The address or the domain doesn't exist | The contact becomes Bounced at once. The address is suppressed for every stream, in every space. |
| Soft | Mailbox full, temporary server problem | The contact becomes Bounced after 3 failures in a row. The address is then suppressed for marketing in this space. |
| Blocked | Refused for reputation or content reasons (spam filter, blocklist, policy) | Counted like a soft bounce. |
A hard bounce is suppressed everywhere because an address that doesn't exist doesn't exist for any sender.
Complaints
A complaint is a recipient clicking "Report spam". Kula then:
- marks the contact Complained;
- unsubscribes it from every list of the space;
- suppresses the address for marketing in this space.
Most providers report complaints one by one. Gmail doesn't: it only publishes a daily spam rate per domain, which Kula reads if you've published the optional Gmail record.
The suppression list
The addresses a space never sends to, in Settings › Suppressions.
| Reason | Added | Blocks | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hard bounce | Automatically | Marketing and transactional | Every space |
| Soft bounce | Automatically, after 3 failures in a row | Marketing | This space |
| Complaint | Automatically | Marketing | This space |
| Manual | By you, with Add address | Marketing | This space |
An email sent to a suppressed address isn't sent: it shows the status Suppressed in Activity and isn't counted in your usage.
Complaints, soft bounces and manual entries don't block transactional emails: someone who reported your newsletter as spam still needs their password reset.
Removing an address
Click Remove next to an address to send to it again, only once the problem is solved: a contact asks to be added back after a full mailbox, for example.
A hard bounce can't be removed: the address was refused as non-existent. If the person fixed their address, add it as a new contact.
Be notified
Subscribe to the email.bounced and email.complained webhooks to update your own database when an address goes bad.