Warnings and blocks

Before an automatic block, FlockStack warns you. You get an email with the numbers and a notice on your dashboard when, over your last 7 days of sends, more than 2% of your emails hard bounce (at least 5) or more than 0.08% are marked as spam (at least 2), when Gmail reports a spam rate of 0.08% or more for your emails, or when the email provider reports a finding on your sending that isn't high impact. Nothing is stopped by a warning.

The email comes once per issue every 7 days while it lasts. The notice goes as soon as a check finds the rate back under the level, or 7 days after it was last seen.

A campaign pauses on its own past 2% hard bounces (at least 5) or 0.08% complaints (at least 2). You are emailed, and you can resume it.

The account is blocked past 5% hard bounces (at least 10) or 0.3% complaints (at least 3), on a campaign, on the first slice of a first send or over the last 7 days, when Gmail's spam rate reaches 0.3%, and when the email provider pauses your sending or reports a high-impact finding. A blocked account sends nothing until an admin unblocks it, and the reason is on your dashboard and in the email you get.

One bad send can pass the block level on its own, faster than a warning over 7 days: contacts you have never emailed go out in steps, a first slice and then the rest after a check, so a bad list shows itself in the slice.

A spam trap is an address that never signed up for anything: it shows up on bought, scraped or very old lists. One email to a trap blocks the account at once, with no warning first, by design: a list with one trap usually has more, and every send to them costs the sending reputation all customers share.

Remove contacts you can't vouch for: an old list, one from somewhere else, or addresses that never opened. Delete them, or leave their import or segment out of your next sends.

Turn on confirmed opt-in in the newsletter's settings, so new signups prove their address before they get anything.

Turn on the list cleanup, so readers who stopped opening get one last-chance email and then stop receiving issues.

Keep the unsubscribe link easy to find: a reader who can't leave marks the email as spam instead.