Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Bounces and Complaints Flashcards
How long does it take for emails sent using Amazon SES to arrive in recipients’ inboxes?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
Amazon SES attempts to deliver emails to the Internet within a few seconds of each request. However, due to a number of factors and the inherent uncertainties of the Internet, we cannot predict with certainty when your email will arrive nor the exact route the message will take to get to its destination.
For example, an ISP might be unable to deliver the email to the recipient because of a temporary condition such as “mailbox full.” In these cases, Amazon attempts to redeliver the message. If the error is permanent, such as “mailbox does not exist,” Amazon SES does not retry the delivery attempt and you will receive a hard bounce notification. You can set up delivery notifications to alert you when Amazon SES successfully delivers one of your emails to a recipient’s mail server.
What actions should I take if I receive a bounce or a complaint?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
You will need to analyze each bounce and complaint email or Amazon SNS JSON object that you receive to determine the cause. Bounces are usually caused by attempting to send to a nonexistent recipient; complaints arise when the recipient indicates that they do not want to receive your message.
In either case, we recommend that you stop sending to these email addresses.
How does Amazon SES send bounce, complaint, and delivery notifications to me?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
Amazon SES forwards bounce and complaint notifications to you by email or sends them to an Amazon SNS topic, depending on your configuration. Delivery notifications, which are triggered when Amazon SES successfully delivers one of your emails to a recipient’s mail server, are sent to you only through Amazon SNS.
Where does Amazon SES send my bounce, complaint, and delivery notifications?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
Delivery notifications are available through Amazon SNS. Bounces and complaints can be sent to you by email, through Amazon SNS, or both. If you choose to receive bounce and complaint notifications by email, Amazon SES will send you your bounce and complaint notifications based on the following logic:
If you used the SMTP interface to send the message, then notifications go to the address specified in SMTP’s required MAIL FROM command, which overrides any Return-Path header specified in the SMTP DATA.
If you used the SendEmail API operation to send the message, then:
If you specified SendEmail’s optional ReturnPath parameter, then notifications go to the specified address.
Otherwise, notifications go to the address specified in SendEmail’s required Source parameter, which populates the From: header of the message.
If you used the SendRawEmail API operation to send the message, then:
If you specified SendRawEmail’s optional Source parameter, then notifications go to that address, overriding any Return-Path header specified in the raw message.
Otherwise, if the Return-Path header was specified in the raw message, then notifications go to that address.
Otherwise, notifications go to the address in the From: header of the raw message.
Is there an additional cost to use Amazon SNS to receive bounce, complaint, and delivery notifications?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
You will incur normal Amazon SNS expenses if you use it for bounce, complaint, and/or delivery notifications. For more information about the costs associated with using Amazon SNS, see Amazon SNS Pricing.
When can I expect to be notified of bounces, complaints, and deliveries?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
After an ISP sends a bounce or complaint to Amazon SES, we will usually pass it to you within a few seconds via Amazon SNS or email. However, we may not receive the bounce or complaint notification from the recipient’s ISP for a period of time ranging from seconds to weeks or longer, depending on how quickly the ISP notifies us.
Delivery notifications are published as soon as Amazon SES delivers an email to a recipient’s mail server. In most cases, email sent through Amazon SES is delivered within seconds, but occasionally it might take longer.
How can I monitor the bounce and complaint rates for the email I send using Amazon SES?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
Amazon SES provides three main ways to monitor your bounces, complaints, deliveries, sent emails, and rejected emails.
The first method is to use the Amazon SES console, Amazon SES API, or Amazon CloudWatch to access basic email sending metrics across your entire AWS account.
The second method is to set up Amazon SES to send you detailed feedback notifications through email or through Amazon SNS.
The third method is to use Amazon SES event publishing. With event publishing, you categorize your emails and collect event data for each category of emails separately using either Amazon CloudWatch or Amazon Kinesis Firehose. You can set up Amazon Kinesis Firehose to send the event records to Amazon Redshift, Amazon S3, or Amazon Elasticsearch Service. If you use Amazon Elasticsearch Service, you can visualize your event data using Kibana.
For more information about monitoring methods, see Monitoring Your Amazon SES Sending Activity in the Amazon SES Developer Guide.
Will I be affected by any bounces or complaints that are caused by other Amazon SES users?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
Typically, when other Amazon SES users send messages that result in bounces or complaints, your ability to send email will remain unchanged.
One exception to this rule occurs when a recipient email address generates a hard bounce. When a recipient’s email address generates a hard bounce, that address is added to a global suppression list. If you try to send an email to an address that is on the global suppression list, the call to Amazon SES succeeds, but Amazon SES treats the email as a hard bounce instead of attempting to send it.
Emails sent to addresses on the global suppression list do count towards your sending quota and your bounce rate. An email address can remain on the suppression list for up to 14 days.
For more information about the global suppression list, see Amazon SES and Deliverability in the Amazon SES Developer Guide.
A recipient address was added to the global suppression list, but I am certain it is a valid address. Can I remove that address from the suppression list?
Bounces and Complaints
Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) | Customer Engagement
You can submit a suppression list removal request using the Amazon SES console. For more information, see Removing an Email Address from the Amazon SES Suppression List in the Amazon SES Developer Guide.
