Why one person isn't receiving your emails

A specific person says they are not getting your emails. Work through these in order — the first four are things you can see, the last is not.

1. Are they suppressed?

Open Suppressions and search the address. If it is there, the Reason column says why — bounced, complained, or unsubscribed. That is the answer, and it is usually final. See The suppression list.

2. Is the address valid?

Find them on Contacts. An address that failed validation is excluded from every send. See Invalid addresses, bounces and unsubscribes.

3. Do they show as Subscribed?

Open the list they should be in. If the Status reads Not subscribed, they will not be emailed — either they opted out, or they never gave marketing consent. Common for ad leads. See See who is in a list.

4. Were they in the audience at all?

Open the campaign and check its Audience, then check they are actually in that list. Being in your account is not the same as being in the list you sent to.

5. Did it go to spam?

If they pass all four checks, the message was almost certainly sent and filed somewhere they have not looked.

Ask them to check spam, junk, and — on Gmail — the Promotions tab. Ask them to search their mailbox for your from-address rather than scrolling, since search covers folders they will not think to open.

If it is in spam, that is a placement problem rather than a per-contact one. See Landing in the inbox instead of spam.

What not to do

Do not re-add someone who unsubscribed, and do not create a duplicate contact with the same address hoping to bypass suppression. Neither works — suppression is on the address — and both make the underlying problem harder to see.

Next: open Suppressions and search the address. That answers it most of the time.