Why are my Journey emails marked as sent or delivered, but not appearing in the recipient's inbox?

If your Journey emails are indicated as 'sent' or 'delivered' in the system logs but recipients report not seeing them, here's how to troubleshoot:

1. Check Spam/Junk Folders: Ask the recipient to thoroughly check their Spam, Junk, Promotions, or other filtered folders. Emails landing here confirm successful delivery but might indicate issues with sender reputation or content filtering.

2. Verify Recipient Status: Ensure the recipient's email address is correctly registered in your system, is not marked as 'Unsubscribed', and passes any reachability checks.

3. Send a Test Email: Use the 'One-time email' feature (usually found under Channels - Email) to send a simple test message directly to the affected email address.

   • If this test email is received, the issue likely relates specifically to the Journey email's content or configuration.
   • If this test email is not received, it might indicate a broader delivery problem with that specific recipient domain.

4. Analyze 'Open' Events: If the system logs show an 'open' event for an email that the recipient claims not to have received, it often means the email was delivered but was processed (e.g., scanned by a security system) or filtered by the recipient's mail server before reaching the inbox. The 'open' is triggered by the loading of tracking pixels during this processing.

5. Test Content Variations: Send test emails to the affected address using different subject lines and body content. This helps determine if specific words, links, or formatting in your original Journey email are triggering filters on the recipient's end.

6. Test Different Domains: Send the Journey email to test addresses on different email domains (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, a different corporate domain) to see if the issue is specific to one provider.

7. Contact Recipient's Email Administrator: If emails are consistently delivered (especially if 'opens' are recorded) but not appearing in the inbox for a specific domain, the issue likely lies with that domain's mail server configuration or filtering rules. The recipient may need to contact their email administrator to investigate server logs and potentially whitelist your sending address or domain.