helps you identify and resolve issues preventing guests from receiving important emails. This ensures guests receive booking confirmations and pre-arrival information, improving guest experience and reducing potential missed bookings.
Accessing this feature
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How to use it
Check Guest Email Address
Confirm the email address is accurately entered, checking for typos, incorrect domains, or missing characters. Even a minor error can cause delivery failure.
If the email was sent to a contact list, ensure all addresses within that list are current and correctly formatted.
Check Guest's Spam/Junk Folder
Ask the guest to check their spam or junk mail folder. Emails are often filtered by recipient-side security systems, especially if the sender is new to them or the email contains certain keywords or attachments.
Suggest adding your sending domain (e.g., yourdomain.com.au) to their approved senders list or 'whitelist'.
Review Platform Email Delivery Logs
Go to the Email Configuration & Logs section within your platform.
Locate the specific email in question using the guest's email address, subject line, or send date.
Examine the delivery status and any associated error messages (e.g., "bounced," "deferred," "rejected"). Common error codes or messages provide specific reasons for non-delivery. A "bounced" status often indicates a permanent failure (hard bounce) due to an invalid address, or a temporary failure (soft bounce) due to a full inbox or temporary server issue.
Analyse Bounce Details
If the log indicates a bounce, analyse the bounce message carefully. This message, often provided by the recipient's mail server, details the exact reason for the rejection. Common reasons include "user unknown," "mailbox full," "blocked by recipient," or "content rejected."
Assess Sender Reputation (If Applicable)
The platform manages overall sender reputation; however, specific content or unusually high bounce rates can affect deliverability. Make sure your email content adheres to best practices (see "Best Practices" below) to avoid triggering spam filters.
Contact Guest's IT Department
If all checks are clear and the issue persists, the guest's email server or IT security policies may be blocking the email. Provide the guest with your sending IP address (available in your platform's email logs or upon request from support) and your sending domain. Ask them to whitelist these details.
Resend the Email
After identifying and rectifying the underlying issue (e.g., correcting an email address, advising whitelisting), attempt to resend the email if the platform provides this functionality. For hard bounces, remove the invalid address from your lists to prevent future delivery attempts and protect sender reputation.
Detailed Email Delivery Logs
Access comprehensive records for every outbound email, including send time, recipient, subject, and final delivery status (delivered, bounced, opened, clicked). This granular data is crucial for pinpointing specific delivery problems.
Bounce Management
The system automatically identifies and categorises email bounces (hard and soft). Hard-bounced addresses are often automatically suppressed to protect your sender reputation and maintain list hygiene. You can manage a list of email addresses that have opted out, marked emails as spam, or permanently bounced. Emails on this list will not receive future communications, ensuring compliance and efficient resource use.
Sender Authentication Configuration
Use the tools to configure and verify SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) records for custom sending domains. Proper authentication significantly improves deliverability by verifying the sender's identity. Consult your domain registrar or IT team for assistance with DNS record configuration.
Email Template Testing
Send test emails to various accounts to preview content rendering and identify potential issues that might trigger spam filters before a full campaign launch.
Maintain Clean Email Lists
Regularly review and update your contact lists. Remove invalid, inactive, or hard-bounced email addresses promptly. High bounce rates negatively impact your sender reputation, leading to more emails being flagged as spam.
Segment and Target Audiences
Send relevant content to segmented audiences. Highly engaged recipients are less likely to mark your emails as spam, which positively influences your sender reputation. Irrelevant content increases the risk of unsubscribes and spam complaints.
Optimise Email Content
Use clear, concise, and descriptive subject lines that accurately reflect the email's content. Avoid all caps, excessive punctuation, or "spammy" phrases (e.g., "FREE!", "Act Now!"). Ensure your email body is well-formatted, includes a balance of text and images, and is free from broken links or unusually large attachments. Always include a clear and functional unsubscribe link.
Authenticate Your Sending Domain
Configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for any custom domains you use to send emails. These authentication methods verify your identity as a legitimate sender, making it less likely for your emails to be marked as spam or rejected by recipient servers.
Monitor Email Metrics
Regularly review your delivery rates, open rates, click-through rates, and bounce rates within the platform's analytics. Significant deviations can indicate underlying delivery issues that require investigation.
Educate Guests
Proactively tell guests to add your sending email address or domain to their safe senders list or address book. This is particularly important for critical transactional emails or regular newsletters.
Avoid Spam Trigger Words
Be mindful of words and phrases commonly associated with spam. Tools are available online to check email content for potential spam triggers.
Send Consistently
Sending emails regularly, but not excessively, helps maintain a consistent sender reputation. Sporadic, large-volume sends can sometimes be flagged as suspicious. Check your sending domain's reputation using online tools. Use a dedicated IP address for sending emails to improve control over your sender reputation. Monitor feedback loops from email providers to identify and address spam complaints quickly.
Tips
Regularly check your email delivery logs for any errors or warnings.
Encourage guests to whitelist your email address to prevent emails from going to spam.
Use a reputable email marketing service to ensure high deliverability.
Monitor your sender reputation to identify and address any issues promptly.
Keep your email lists clean and up-to-date to reduce bounce rates.
Need help?
For further assistance, contact us at [email protected]