Test messages should come to your inbox within a few minutes. If you have not received your test message, follow these steps to find out why and solve the issue.
First, check the Sent Message report for details on your test message to make sure it was sent by Act-On. Go to Outbound > Test Messages, hover over your email, and click Report.
If your message failed due to a bounce, suppression, or another failure, the reason will be listed there.
Continue reading for details on each possible reason you did not get your email.
My Email Bounced
Act-On sent the email, but it was rejected by your company's mail server. This is most common when your Technical Setup is incomplete. Act-On emails will be flagged as spam and are likely to bounce if your DNS does not have the necessary records that approve Act-On to send these emails.
See Hard Bounces, Soft Bounces, and Suppressions for more information.
Action Steps:
- Make sure that your account has completed the Required Technical Setup, including:
- Email From - DKIM and SPF records in the DNS settings for the sending domain
- DMARC - some important things to know:
- SPF and DKIM must be set for DMARC validation to pass, so check those DNS records first
- DMARC is optional for sending from Act-On
- Incorrectly implemented DMARC can also cause emails to bounce!
- allowlisting Act-On's IPs and domains
For more help reviewing these records, see Validating Your Technical Setup. - If your message was a Hard Bounce, remove your email from the Hard Bounce list.
- Send your test email again.
My Email Was Suppressed
If the message was not received due to fatigue rules, the test contact having opted out, etc., this will be listed in the Not Sent/Suppressed section.
- Email Fatigue: Update your email fatigue rules and try sending the email again.
- Opt-Out: This may happen if you accidentally clicked the opt-out link. You will need to re-subscribe your email and try again. See How do I resubscribe a contact who mistakenly opted out? for instructions.
- Hard Bounce: Suppression due to a prior hard bounce should be treated the same as a bounced message. See My Email Bounced for instructions.
- Too Many Soft Bounces: Suppression due to too many soft bounces should be treated the same as a bounced messages. See My Email Bounced for instructions.
My Email Failed
For some reason, Act-On could not send the email. You will need to resolve the reason the message failed and try again. See Managing Failed Email Messages for more help.
My Email Was Sent, But I Never Received It
If Act-On shows that the email message was sent, but you still did not receive it in your inbox:
Check your Spam box. If the email landed here, here are some possible reasons:
- The email content was flagged as spam. For help with this, you can use our Spam Score tool to help design a message that does not trigger spam filters.
- The email looks spoofed. This happens because you have not completed our technical setup, including allowlisting Act-On's IPs and domains.
If it was not in your Spam, you can also check with your IT team. Your company's email service may have quarantined the email message. This is also likely to happen if you have not completed our technical setup and added Act-On's IPs to your company's allowlist.
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