How do clients handle wrong addresses in email list?

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PSLog

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#55402 3-Jan-2010 08:52

What happens to other recipients' messages when one list address is incorrect?
If you send a message to a mailing list and one of the addresses on the list is wrong, what happens?
The message is not sent to anyone?
The message is sent to all recipients up to the wrong address?
The message is sent to all correct addresses - it only wrong ones that fail?

I don't want to resend the message to people who have already received it.
Thanks

PS. If it's client dependent - then the client is Thunderbird

sleemanj

1474 posts

Uber Geek

#286630 3-Jan-2010 11:11

If you sent with CC/BCC, then it's outgoing mail server dependant, but you can expect that it will attempt delivery to all addresses.

If you sent with multiple "To" recipients, then it's most likely client dependant, but you can also expect it sent to all.

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Jarno

270 posts

Ultimate Geek

#286641 3-Jan-2010 12:13

Your email client does not know if an address is correct or not. The email is not sent directly to the address. Instead the email client sends it to your ISP, which then sends it on to some other place which it thinks knows where to deliver the message, and so on along a reasonable path until it reaches the ISP of the recipient. This can take anything from seconds to minutes (to hours if there is a hickup somewhere).

If there is a problem delivering the email (e.g. the recipient ISP does not have any record of such a person), generally a message is send back saying so. But as I said, this can take some time to occur, so it is not something the email client waits for.

Having multiple "To", "CC", and/or "BCC" recipients actually results in your ISP sending an individual copy to each recipient. So if one of the copies fails to deliver, it does not affect any of the others.

PSLog

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#286657 3-Jan-2010 13:30

It was a list sent using BCC.
I'll just correct the error and resend that one.
Thanks for your replies - they make sense when you think about it.

nate

6469 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#286701 3-Jan-2010 17:49

If you are regularly sending out mass emails, you may want to use an online system to do this, and so you are not in breach of NZ's anti spam email laws.

PSLog

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#286729 3-Jan-2010 20:23

No, not regularly doing it.
Not sure now if the answers WERE correct.
I have received NO reaction at all from supposedly over 200 addressees. Not at all what I would have expected.

The initial error reported was only about 15 addresses into the list. Checking through more of the list I have seen another wrong address. This was NOT reported, which suggests to me that the email client did not try to send to the rest of the list.

Is there any foolproof way of determining which emails were and which were not sent?

Ragnor

8085 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#286732 3-Jan-2010 20:38

If you didn't embed any tracking code/links and you don't have access to the logs of the smtp server used there's basically no way to tell.

You should register yourself a couple of "sanity check" addresses eg: a hotmail and gmail account. Add them on the end of the BCC list in future and then you at least know if those accounts received the email and whether either system marked the email as spam and so forth.

However, I would highly recommend using an emailing service like Campaign Monitor or Mail Chimp as they take care of reliable delivery, tracking for bounces/views/opens, checking if your message will get tagged as spam and checking your email (if it's html) looks correct in various different clients.

For infrequent mailouts I would look at Campaign Monitor over Mail Chimp.

http://www.campaignmonitor.com/features/
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/pricing/

Ragnor

8085 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#286734 3-Jan-2010 20:46

Also as someone mentioned above you need to be careful not to breech the (anti spam) law, you need inferred or express consent to send someone and email newsletter in NZ.

This business guide from the DIA covers everything well

http://www.dia.govt.nz/Pubforms.nsf/URL/BusinessGuide.pdf/$file/BusinessGuide.pdf

PSLog

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#286752 3-Jan-2010 21:41

Not regularly doing it - in fact this is a oncer and only 200 involved.
My gut feeling told me that no emails were sent after the first error, so I've now sent the rest manually.

The suggestion of adding a "sanity check" email to myself at the end would certainly have been a good idea.

Thanks for the help.