We check every email address just before your campaign sends to it. If we know an address does not work, we do not send the email. This keeps bounces low in your email campaigns. Fewer bounces protect the sender reputation of your mailbox. A mailbox is an email account you connect to JournoFinder.
A bounce is an email that comes back because it could not be delivered. A campaign is an email and its follow-ups sent to a set of people.
When do we check an address?
We check each address when the email is due to send. You do not need to do anything.
If we checked the address in the last 7 days and it works, the email sends.
If we have no recent check, we check it first. The email waits until we have a result. This usually takes a few minutes.
If we know the address does not work, we do not send the email.
There is no option to send anyway.
A follow-up is a later email in a campaign that sends if the person has not replied. A follow-up skips the check when the email before it reached the same address in the last 7 days.
What do "Ready", "Risky" and "Unverified" mean?
When you review the people in a campaign, each person has a status. This table lists the address statuses.
Status | What it means | Does the email send? |
“Ready” | We checked the address and it works. | Yes. |
“Risky” | We could not confirm the address works. For example, the outlet's server accepts every address, or we have not checked the address yet. | Yes, after the check at send time. |
“Unverified” | A contact you added yourself. We have not checked the address yet. | Yes, after the check at send time. |
The bar at the bottom of the Recipients step shows “Emails are verified when you send.” when some addresses are unverified.
We never pick an address we know does not work. If a journalist has no other address, they show “No email” and are skipped.
What does "Undeliverable" mean?
“Undeliverable” means we stopped the email before it sent. The check at send time found the address does not work. On the campaign's Overview tab, the row shows the reason “email verification failed”. We also cancel that person's later follow-ups in the campaign.
We then look again for a working address for that person. If we find one, Add or remove people after a campaign has launched explains what happens.
An undeliverable address is not added to your blocklist. The blocklist is the list of addresses your campaigns will never email.
What happens when an email bounces?
Some emails still bounce after the check. When an email bounces:
The first email's row shows “Bounced” on the Overview tab, with the reason. For example: “bounced 2 hours ago (address does not exist)”.
If a follow-up bounces, the row still shows “Sent”, because the first email arrived. The line under the name says which follow-up bounced.
We cancel every email still waiting to go to that person in your campaigns.
Which bounces go on the blocklist?
Only bounces that show the address does not work go on your blocklist. We call these hard bounces. Other bounces are soft bounces. This table lists some of the reasons you see on the Overview tab.
Reason shown | Type | Added to the blocklist? |
“address does not exist” | Hard | Yes |
“invalid address” | Hard | Yes |
“mailbox disabled” | Hard | Yes |
“mailbox full” | Soft | No |
“blocked as spam” | Soft | No |
“reason unclear” | Soft | No |
A hard bounce adds the address to the blocklist for you and your team. On the blocklist page, its reason shows “Email bounced”. A soft bounce does not show that the address has stopped working. A future campaign can email it again.
Note: Only hard bounces count toward the automatic pause for too many bounces. Campaign paused: "too many emails bounced" explains the pause and how to fix it.