The User Activity section of our Journey Step Analysis report provides delivery error statuses to give you insight into why your journey communication did not reach their intended recipients. Here's a guide to understanding what each status means.

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Bounced: Emails are permanently denied by the server

A bounce occurs when the receiving server returns a code indicating a permanent issue—either with the server itself or the recipient's email address. As a result, we will not attempt to send the communication again.

Common Reasons:

• Invalid Email Address: The email address does not exist.
• Domain Not Found: The domain part of the email address (e.g., @example.com) does not exist.
• Mailbox Full (Permanent): The recipient's mailbox is permanently full.
• Recipient Server Policy: The recipient's server has a permanent policy preventing delivery from your sending address/domain.

Recommendation: Ensure that Firstup is a trusted sender. Consider removing these users from your Firstup users list as they are permanently undeliverable.

Blocked: Emails are temporarily denied by the server

In cases of temporary rejection, the receiving server's reason for declining the message is unrelated to the quality of the sender's address.

Common Reasons:

• The sending IP or domain is on a denied list.
• There are spam elements within the communication content.
• A technical issue occurred between the two servers when you attempted to send your email.

Recommendation: Ensure that Firstup is a trusted sender. Review communication content for spam-like content.

Dropped: Emails not delivered due to address history

The email was withheld to protect sender reputation and honor the recipient's preferences. This occurs before any attempt is made to deliver the message to the recipient's server.

Common Reasons:

• Unsubscribed Address: The recipient previously unsubscribed from your emails.
• Bounced Address (Pre-emptive): The address has bounced before.
• Spam Reporting Address: The recipient previously marked your emails as spam.
• Invalid Address: The address was identified as malformed or invalid during initial processing.
• Spam Content: Internal filters detected content likely to be flagged as spam.

Recommendation: Review the reason the email was dropped. If it's due to an unsubscribe, bounce, or spam complaint, those addresses are automatically suppressed and should not be contacted again. If the drop is content-related, review and adjust your email content accordingly.

Other: Emails not delivered due to other issue

This category covers less common or more technical issues that prevent an email from being processed or delivered, and don't fit neatly into the standard "Blocked," "Bounced" or "Dropped" categories. These are often unspecified errors from the recipient's server or issues with the initial request.

Common Reasons:

• Unspecified Server Rejection: The recipient's server rejected the email with a generic error code or no specific reason that could be categorized further (e.g., "Delayed Bounce - Unable to Parse Server Reason").
• API Request Issues: Problems with how the email request was sent to the sender API (e.g., malformed data, incorrect settings).
• Temporary Sender System Issues: Very rare, but could indicate an internal problem within our sending system (these are usually resolved quickly).

Recommendation: If you see a significant number of emails under "Other," please reach out to our Support team.

Additional Resources

Check out the articles below for detailed guidance on creating and managing journeys:

Journey Automation
Starting a Journey
Adding Journey Steps
Journey Management
Journey Member Visibility
Journey Reporting
Journey Insights
Journey Use Cases