When sending emails, you should avoid getting hard and complaint message events (see below). These events, if repeated, could result in the temporary suspension of email sending with your ALIX system.
When you send an email with ALIX, an initial check is made by ALIX and the email delivery service.
Sender email request to ALIX fails #
ALIX replies to the sender with an error and deletes the email. The request can fail for several reasons. For example, the request may be formatted incorrectly or the email address may not have been verified by the sender.
The request to send an email is a success #
The email will be sent to the recipients and here are the possible results.
Success #
The delivery is successful and the recipient does not object to the email. The email is accepted by the Internet Service Provider (ISP), which delivers it to the recipient.
Definitive error message #
The email is rejected by the ISP due to a persistent condition or by ALIX, as the email address is on ALIX’s suppression list. An email address is on the ALIX suppression list if it has recently caused a hard error message for an ALIX customer. A hard bounce message with an ISP can occur when the recipient’s address is invalid. A hard bounce notification is sent back by the ISP to ALIX, which notifies the sender by email, depending on the sender’s configuration.
Temporary error message #
The ISP can’t deliver the email to the recipient due to a temporary condition, such as if they’re too busy to process the request or if the recipient’s mailbox is full. A temporary error message can also occur if the domain doesn’t exist. The ISP sends a transient error message notification back to ALIX, or, in the case of a domain that doesn’t exist, ALIX can’t find a mail server for the domain. In both cases, ALIX attempts to deliver the email for an extended period of time. If ALIX is unable to deliver the email within this period, it will send you a bounce notification via email. If ALIX can deliver the email to the recipient on a second attempt, the delivery is successful.
Claim #
The email is accepted by the ISP and delivered to the recipient, but the recipient considers the email to be spam and clicks the “Mark as spam” button in their email client. If ALIX has a feedback loop set up with the ISP, a complaint notification is sent to ALIX, which forwards it to the sender. Most ISPs do not provide the email address of the recipient who made the complaint, so the complaint notification sent by ALIX provides the sender with a list of recipients who may have sent the complaint, based on the recipients of the original message and the ISP from which ALIX received the complaint.
Automatic reply #
The email is accepted by the ISP, and the ISP delivers it to the recipient. The ISP then sends an automatic response such as an out-of-office message to ALIX. ALIX forwards the automatic reply notification to the sender.