Why an email did not send

A contact did not get your email. The four places to look, in the order that resolves it fastest.

Nothing is dropped silently. Every skipped email is recorded with a reason, so this is a lookup rather than an investigation. Check in this order.

#1. The audience tab

Open the campaign, go to Audience, and filter by skip reason. This tells you about a specific person straight away.

BadgeMeansFix
SendingActively receiving stepsNothing wrong
PendingEnrolled, next step not due yetWait
Daily limitAt 2 emails in 24 hours, the next step is skippedThe daily cap
In another campaignAlready in a different dripOne campaign per contact
Opted outUnsubscribed or suppressedCannot be fixed, and should not be
Recent bounceBounced in the last 30 days, skipped at enrolmentCheck the address is right
CompletedFinished all stepsNothing wrong

#2. The pre-flight card

At the top of the Audience tab: total contacts, how many will actually receive, how many are skipped and why. Use it to see whether the problem is one person or a pattern.

#3. Email Health

In the Drip Campaign Builder. Shows the last 7 days of skips by reason, click a reason to see the exact addresses. Also where a Sending paused row appears if your account is locked out.

Check for a lockout first if nothing is sending at all

If no campaign is sending, this is why. A lockout shows here with a countdown. See Auto-pause and lockouts.

#4. Analytics → step recipients

For per-step, per-person delivery: Analytics → Step Recipients, which shows delivered, opened, clicked, bounced and unsubscribed for each recipient, and exports to Excel.

#Common causes, fastest first

SymptomUsually
Nothing sends, any campaignEmail domain not verified, see Verifying your domain, or an account lockout
One person gets nothing, everyone else fineThey unsubscribed, hard-bounced, or are in another campaign
Some contacts skipped on one stepThe daily cap. Something else emailed them that day
Campaign stopped mid-way on its ownAuto-paused after two hard bounces
Second campaign reached almost nobodyThe one-campaign rule, they were already in the first
Contact shows No emailThe record has a placeholder address from import. See What the importer fixes for you

#It sent, but they say they never got it

Delivered but unseen is a different problem from not sent. Check the step recipients view, if it says delivered, the email reached their mail provider. From there it is spam filtering or the person not looking.

If that is happening broadly, the usual cause is an incomplete domain setup. Everything in The DNS records exists to prevent exactly this.

Last updated 15 August 2026