Emails Can Fail for Several Reasons, and This Resource Details How to Fix Each

Before going through these cases, however, it's worth noting how to actually retry delivery. There are three ways to do this, and each is effectively the same:

1. From the Emails tab of a sequence (this tab shows individual emails instead of individual contacts) -
   
   
   
   
2. From the Contacts tab of a sequence (this tab shows individual contacts instead of individual emails) -
   
   
   
   
3. From the Outbox page (this page shows an aggregate of all emails, both in and out of sequences) -
   

Now that you know how to retry messages, let's dive into the possible reasons you'd need to do so.

Contacts are in the sequence, but no emails are scheduled or delivered 

To start, if your emails haven't even attempted to send, but you have active contacts in the sequence, you'll want to check 3 things first:

1. Is the sequence in question set live (the blue switch in the top right)?
2. Is at least one step in the sequence set to be active (the blue switch to the left of each step)?
3. Are there contacts in the sequence that have been in the sequence long enough to hit the wait time for the first step (more on that here)?

Emails have been sent, but failed to deliver

When you send an email through Apollo it can fail to send. We put these emails into one of three tabs- Bounced, Requires Manual Review, and Not Sent. If you tried to send emails and they didn't send out and are in the Scheduled tab, you'll want to have a look at this doc.

Bounced

When an email bounces this means that the inbox of the end user had an error, in general this means the email itself doesn't exist. If this email address came from a lead request you made from Apollo then we will refund you the credit you spent on this contact. When an email bounces we will move the contact's stage to Bad Data, which will give you a way to avoid messaging these people again. The only way to "fix" a bounced email is to try a different email address and try to send the email again to the new address.

Requires Manual Review

This tab is reserved for Manual Emails - which by their nature do not go out automatically. To send a manual email you need to open the task, either from your Home page or from the Tasks list, and edit the email if needed, and then choose to either send it immediately or schedule it for later.

Home:

Tasks:

Not Sent

Not Sent is the broadest category, this is the catch all for all the other reasons an email didn't send. 

• Blocked Contact Stage: When a contact is in a stage that you have set up to not message in that sequence's Settings and you try to email them this will trigger.
  • To fix this you can either change that contact's stage, or you can change the sequence's settings to send to that contact stage. After you make that change you can retry sending the message.
• Blocked Account Stage: When contact's account is in a stage that you have set up to not message in that sequence's Settings and you try to email them this will trigger.
  • To fix this you can either change that account's stage, or you can change the sequence's settings to send to that account stage. After you make that change you can retry sending the message.
• Same Account Replied: When you have this option checked in a sequence's Settings and another contact in the sequence who is from the same account replies to an email this will trigger.
  • If you still wanted to send this failed email you can still choose to retry it.
• Unverified Email: When you try to send an email to an unverified email this will trigger unless you have previously chosen to send emails to unverified emails. This is just a failsafe, as some Apollo users prefer to only send to verified emails. In general it's worth still sending to unverified email, as these still have at least a 60% chance of going through (though this number is generally closer to an 80% average).
  • If you still wanted to send this failed email you can still choose to retry it.
• Missing Snippet: If you have snippets in a message and the contact you're sending it too does not have a value for one of the snippets in the message this will trigger.
  • There are a few ways to fix this. By far the best options are to either add a value for that field on the contact, or to make that snippet an advanced snippet and add a fallback for instances like this. Learn how to do that here!
• Missing Thread Info: If you send an email as a "reply to a previous thread" and the contact has deleted that initial email then this will trigger.
  • There isn't really a way to fix this, since this is predicated on the existence of that first email. You could create a one-off manual email to send them this info, but keep in mind any other steps in this sequence will also fail if they too are replies to a previous thread.
• No Send-From Mailbox Selected: If a user (teammate) removes a linked mailbox and there are contacts in a sequence that had that mailbox as the send-from address, then this will trigger.
  • To fix this you will need to re-link a mailbox (if not done already), update the send-from address so it's using that mailbox (you can also choose another one if you like),  and then retry the message. Here's how to send from another user!
• Email Missing or Invalid: If you have uploaded a contact with no email (or a mis-formatted email) and try to email them we will surface this error.
  • To fix this you will need to update the contact's email.
• Contact/Account Not Owned by User: If a user's permissions are set to only allow them to send to accounts/contacts that they are the owner of and they try to send to another user's contacts/accounts we will surface this error.
  • To fix this you will need to either re-assign ownership or change the sending user's permissions to allow them to send to contacts/accounts owned by other users.
• Email Service Provider Error: If the contact's email server returns an error to us and was unable to deliver the email this error will show.
  • If you hover over this error we will provide additional information you can use to troubleshoot yourself if you input the error into Google search, or you can reach out to us. Keep in mind many of these errors will require changes to be made on the contact's end, so this isn't something we can always help with.
• Other: If none of the above errors are applicable then this is the error we will show. Reach out to us either through the support widget on the bottom right or be emailing us at support@apollo.io and pass along the details and we will have a look!

Emails Didn't Send

There are two reasons why an email wouldn't have any attempt to send. For these instances, they will only appear under the 'Contact' section of Sequences. They will not appear in the Outbox of your app or in the 'Emails' section of Sequences since there was no attempt to send them.

• User Deleted: If a user (teammate) is deleted in your app that has contacts that are active in a sequence, this will be triggered.
  • To fix this you will need to re-assign ownership of those contacts.
• Date Passed: If an email in a sequence is scheduled to send at an exact time/date that has already passed, this error message will appear.
  • To fix this, you'll need to edit the sending time for the step for a future time/date.