Motivosity sends out an automated report on a weekly basis which helps to check for any email addresses within your organization that may not be active or that are returning bounced email notices. Each Monday at 6 AM (UTC), if there are any emails that have sent back these bounced email notices, all users with admin access should receive an automated update letting them know what email address is returning this notice, what identifiable reason (if any) caused the bounce, and when the bounced notice occurred during the previous week.
If you are receiving any bounced email reports from Motivosity and are unsure why, here are a some things to keep in mind and a few quick suggestions on where to check in order to resolve them!
Email Spelling
The most common cause of the bounced emails is that the user's email is actually incorrect. This could be something as simple as having the address accidentally being off by only a single letter, the user having had a recent email change that is not yet reflected within Motivosity, or perhaps that user has a different top/second level domain from the real one used. A quick check verifying that the email within Motivosity for that user is an existing and functioning one is a good place to start!
Recent Account Updates
Following bounced email notices, we also recommend double checking the time stamp next to the email(s) in question. For example, if you think a notice seems off because you already changed a user's email address or because you deleted that user, it's likely that the bounce happened before you made the update. If the timestamp reflects a bounce that occurred pre-update, you can disregard the notification.
Other Less Common Causes
Less frequent causes of bounce errors can include:
Users blocking our notification email address (noreply@motivosity.com)
Some vacation/away services will report as bounced even though they are successfully delivered to the inbox of the user
Temporary email server outages due to connectivity problems or updates
How to Troubleshoot These Notices
To help resolve any bounced email notices, and in addition to the suggestions already provided above, additional troubleshooting steps as an admin include:
Working with your internal IT team to whitelist noreply@motivosity.com
Emailing the user directly to see if you get a bounce when using your own email (this uncovers incorrect emails very easily)
You should use the provided errors to get you closer to the source of the issue
Examples of Possible Error Messages
There are many different types of smtp errors, you can learn more about the identification numbers here. In addition to these, here are some other possible error messages that could be attached to the bounced email notices:
"Amazon SES has suppressed sending to this address" - Likely caused by an incorrect email address.
"Recipient address rejected" - Likely caused by an incorrect email address, a company spam filter, or a user who blocked our address.
"Unknown email bounce error" - Hard to pin it down as we didn't hear back with a response from your email service. We have seen incorrect email addresses cause this most frequently.