Your email campaign has launched, but no emails go out, or they stop part way. The most common cause is timing. The campaign waits for its start date or its sending window.
A campaign is an email and its follow-ups sent to a set of people. A mailbox is an email account you connect to JournoFinder.
Start with the campaign's status
In the sidebar, under Outreach, click Campaigns.
Find your campaign and read its status.
Click the campaign to open its Overview tab. Read the headline at the top of the page.
This table lists each status and the check that matches it.
Status on the Campaigns list | Headline on the Overview tab | Section to read |
“Scheduled” | “Starts” and a date | Check the campaign's start date |
“Sending” | “Sending, 12 emails still to go” | Check the sending window, then the mailbox's daily limit and sender name |
“Quota Reached” | “Paused, you have hit your monthly email limit” | Check your monthly email limit |
“High Bounces” | “Paused automatically, too many emails bounced” | Check for too many bounced emails |
“Paused” | “Paused” | Resume a paused campaign |
“Error” | “Sending account disconnected. Reconnect and resume.” | Check the mailbox connection |
The numbers in the headline are your own campaign's counts.
A campaign that shows “Cancelled” was stopped before it finished. It cannot be restarted.
Check the campaign's start date
What you see: The campaign shows “Scheduled” with a date. The Overview headline says “Starts” and the day, for example “Starts Tuesday 6 October”.
Why it happens: You chose Schedule for later when you launched. Nothing sends before that day. On the day, the first email goes out at the first open slot in your sending window.
How to fix: To send sooner, cancel the schedule and launch again.
On the Campaigns tab, click the actions menu on the campaign's row.
Click Cancel schedule. The campaign goes back to a draft. Its recipients and emails are kept.
Open the campaign and go to the Launch step.
Under Start, choose Start now. Tick your mailbox under Send from again.
Click Launch campaign.
Check the sending window
What you see: The campaign shows “Sending”, but the number of emails still to go does not change. Recipients on the Overview tab show “Queued”.
Why it happens: The sending window is the days and hours campaign emails are allowed to send. Business hours means Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, in each journalist's local time. Outside those hours, emails wait. For example, a campaign launched on Friday at 6:00 pm sends its first emails on Monday after 9:00 am.
How to fix: Wait for the window to open. To change the window:
On the Overview tab, click Pause.
Go to the Settings tab.
Under Sending window, change the days or hours. For example, choose Any time.
Click Save changes. In the box that opens, click Save changes again.
Click Resume.
Check the mailbox's daily limit
What you see: The campaign shows “Sending” and some emails went out today, then sending stopped. On the Email Accounts tab, your mailbox shows a line such as “30/30 sent today”.
Why it happens: Each mailbox sends up to 30 campaign emails a day by default. The count covers all campaigns that use the mailbox. It starts again at midnight UTC. Emails left over send the next day.
How to fix: Wait until the count resets. To send more each day, raise the limit.
On the Email Accounts tab, click your mailbox.
Under Campaign daily limit, enter a higher number. The maximum is 250.
Click Save changes. The bar shows “All changes saved”.
A higher daily limit makes it more likely that mail providers send your emails to spam. Set your sender name, signature and sending speed explains this setting.
Check your monthly email limit
What you see: The campaign shows “Quota Reached”. The Overview headline says “Paused, you have hit your monthly email limit”.
Why it happens: Your plan includes a set number of campaign emails each month. Every campaign email counts, follow-ups included. When you use them all, we pause the campaign. The count starts again on the 1st of each month, UTC time. You can see your allowance at Preferences > Limits.
How to fix: The campaign does not restart by itself on the 1st.
After the 1st of the month, open the campaign.
On the Overview tab, click Resume.
If you resume before the count resets, the campaign pauses again at the next email. Email Outreach plans and limits lists the allowance for each plan.
Check for too many bounced emails
What you see: The campaign shows “High Bounces”. The Overview headline says “Paused automatically, too many emails bounced”.
Why it happens: A bounce is an email that comes back because it could not be delivered. We pause a campaign when too many of its emails bounce. This protects your mailbox from being marked as spam.
How to fix: Find the bounced emails, remove people you expect to bounce, then click Resume. Campaign paused: "too many emails bounced" has the full steps.
Resume a paused campaign
What you see: The campaign shows “Paused”. Every tab of the campaign shows “Paused. Nothing sends until you resume.”
Why it happens: Someone paused the campaign. It stays paused after you edit it, until you resume it.
How to fix:
On the Overview tab, click Resume.
Check the mailbox connection
What you see: The campaign shows “Error”. Every tab of the campaign shows:
“Sending stopped. This campaign's mailbox can't send. Pick a working mailbox in Settings, then resume.”
On the Email Accounts tab, the mailbox shows Reconnect and “Not sending or receiving”.
Why it happens: JournoFinder can no longer sign in to your mailbox. This happens when the campaign sends from one mailbox only. The email it was sending at that moment shows “Failed” and is not sent again. The remaining emails wait until you fix this.
How to fix:
On the Email Accounts tab, click Reconnect on the mailbox.
Sign in to your email account again.
Open the campaign and click Resume.
If you cannot reconnect the mailbox, use a different one. Go to the campaign's Settings tab. Under Send from, tick a working mailbox. Click Save changes, then click Resume.
If you try to resume before any mailbox is reconnected, you see:
“At least one sending account must be reconnected before resuming. Please reconnect any email account and try again.”
Mailbox shows "Reconnect" or "Not sending or receiving" explains reconnecting in more detail.
Check the mailbox has a sender name
What you see: The campaign shows “Sending”, but nothing goes out. On the mailbox's page, Sender name is marked “Required” with “This account can't send until you add a sender name.”
Why it happens: The sender name is the name journalists see in the From line. We skip a mailbox that has no sender name. A campaign can launch without one. If that is the campaign's only mailbox, nothing sends.
How to fix:
On the Email Accounts tab, click your mailbox.
Under Sender name, enter your name.
Click Save changes. The bar shows “All changes saved”.
Sending starts again at the next open slot in the sending window.
Check for follow-ups waiting on a mailbox
What you see: On the campaign's Overview tab, a banner says “3 follow-ups waiting on” and a mailbox address, with “Needs reconnecting. Follow-ups can’t switch mailbox mid-thread.” The number shows your own count.
Why it happens: A follow-up is a later email in a campaign that sends if the person has not replied. It always goes from the mailbox that sent the first email, so it stays in the same email thread. When that mailbox is disconnected, its follow-ups wait. Other mailboxes on the campaign keep sending.
How to fix:
On the banner, click Reconnect.
Sign in to your email account again.
The follow-ups send in the next sending window. The banner goes away.
Check that recipients have an email address
What you see: Some journalists got no email. On the Launch step, the summary said “excluded”, with “need a choice” or “without an email”.
Why it happens: We only email people with an email address. People with no known address are skipped at launch. People with more than one address are skipped until you choose one.
How to fix: For people with more than one address, choose one before you launch. Add journalists and contacts to a campaign explains how.
For people with no address, we check every hour for a new one. If we find one within 48 hours of the campaign's last email, we send them the campaign. After 48 hours, the Overview tab shows a banner such as “2 people got an email address since this campaign ran”. Click Send to all 2 to email them, or Dismiss.
Still not working?
Contact support. Send us:
the campaign name
the mailbox address you send from
the exact status and headline on the Overview tab
a screenshot of the Overview tab
the time you expected the emails to send