Can't send sample email

[K_Fletcher]

I've tried to send a sample email to myself. I am the lead of the email, I've checked that the From address is accurate, I have tried sending the sample to a few other people in addition to myself. None of us have received the sample in our mailboxes (includes checking our spam). Kindly let me know any tricks you may have! 

Thank you!

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

You can refer to this community thread and try to debug. In most cases firewall/privacy filters' been blocking the emails from Marketo. You can always use the manual person action/smart campaign to send the email to check for any possible email bounces in the person activity log. Hope this helps.

[Katja_Keesom]

I would try sending the email to yourself as a 'real' email. If there is something wrong that generally results in a soft bounce which will be recorded on your lead record with more information about why it failed.

[SanfordWhiteman · Accepted solution]

Agree with both of the above suggestions wrt sending a real email. The only way to debug deliverability with samples is to, well... not send a sample.

However do note that samples are sent from different servers at Marketo. So it’s remotely possible that your real emails will go through, but your samples will bounce, because only the sample server is blocklisted. If the real email bounces, then that’ll almost surely be the same reason the sample bounces.

I don’t advise allow-listing/whitelisting Marketo. This disguises problems with your configuration that may be affecting recipients using the same anti-spam/anti-phishing software. There are only a handful of large providers, so it’s almost certain that some of your audience is using the same protection you are — but won’t be allowing Marketo past that protection.

[Courtny_Edwards]

That is a really great point @SanfordWhiteman - we whitelisted Marketo IPs early on in setting up our instance as several people couldn't receive samples, but you're making me second guess that choice. We don't have deliverability issues currently, but could be a way to test and optimise. 

Also @K_Fletcher - agree with everyone to send a 'real' email, also one way I sometimes run a really quick test while troubleshooting is to send a sample to a personal email address vs. professional (or vice versa) and check where the sample ends up then, is it delivered fine or is it in junk/spam (or still not delivering)?