I have been faced with 609 bounced emails from Guests following my new web site launch email to them on 18 November. It is pointless me doing any more Guest emails until this is sorted out. Doing the admin work to get on top of this issue has diverted me from what I really like doing!
What have I done/will do?
- Analysed all these emails as to cause shown in the rejection email from ISPs
- For 94 addresses shown as ‘Blocked’ (either by the individual or their ISP) I sent one to one emails to try to sort this out with Guest concerned. I received 10 responses and 8 further bounces. So 76 people didn’t have the decency to respond
- Listed all the email addresses in each cause category
- Researched how all these causes arise (they all have individual code numbers in the ‘trade’) and what I can do about them
- For technicians bounces are further categorised as Hard (about which nothing can be done) and Soft (about which something might be done)
- I will now have to delete individually all Hard cases (538) from the data base. It will take a while but when complete will mean the data base is in a much better state of health. We have looked at deletion in bulk but that will take time to put in place, is risky and will cost.
There are further steps that we will take to avoid this ever happening again. More later….