Inconsistent Total Recipients in Square Marketing Email Campaigns

[JoeTend]

Hi All. 

I'm hoping someone here has some insightful feedback on this issue. I've been unable to get to the bottom of it through Square support. Over the last several months, when I send an email through Square Marketing, the total "Sends" fluctuates from send to send in a big way. We have over 6,000 subscribers with email addresses (and we've worked hard to collect those!), but we've recently seen that as few as 5,500 "recipients" have been sent the emails. The number of "bounced" email addresses is less than 100, so that's not the issue. And we only see 0-15 unsubscribes per email, so we're not bleeding subscribers. We've been using Square Marketing for years, and par for a few blips here and there, we've never seen such a consistent fluctuation in sends.

Attaching a couple of screenshots of the last few months of Square Marketing Email sends to show the erratic Recipient counts.

Does anyone have any clue as to why my full email subscriber list isn't getting sent every email that we sent? 

Thanks!

Joe

[JoeTend]

 

 

[MayaP]

Hey @JoeTend, I am happy to investigate why there have been fluctuations.  

Are you using smart groups when sending, or are you doing like top spenders or anything? Or are you sending it to all?

[JoeTend]

Hi @MayaP! I’m sending to all subscribers. I’m not using groups or subsets.

[MayaP]

I apologize for the late reply @JoeTend! 

Bounces are managed across Square, so if an email has a bounce, it'll get stood down or unsubscribed for everyone. Fluctuations of 10% are pretty regular, 20-30% would be a issue that we need to look into. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions! 🙂

[theoldtownshop]

Could you explain what you mean by " it'll get stood down or unsubscribed for everyone" with regards to a bounce? We have been having the same exact issue hand have not really gotten anywhere is Square help. I've just been told that some emails bounce. But, as you mentioned, 20-30% bounce rate is a bigger issue and that is exactly what has been going on for us as well. 

Thank you, 

Carrie

[theoldtownshop]

Hi, 

I keep having an issue where a large amount of our emails will bounce. One week the entire list will get sent and the next a few hundred will bounce. Why is this happening? and Why are the sent emails so inconsistent? 

Thanks!

[MayaP]

Good Morning @theoldtownshop, thanks for flagging. I understand this is frustrating! 

I am tagging some super sellers who can provide some insight and workarounds. Thanks for all your help @ryanwanner @wajiha @makedonas @JamesSandbar @vinesandrushes!

[tarao]

This is happening to me for all yahoo and aol accounts and just started happening this week. 

[Greenmonkey65]

Hey! Im having this same issue with our marketing. I reached  out to a few of my subscribers and they said they were still getting them wcen though the report showed them as bounce! 

[theoldtownshop]

Hello, 

We are still having this issue. For a few emails everything seemed fine and now it is back to not sending to the entire list. I checked to see which emails bounced and a lot of them were not YAHOO or AOL. Also, it is hard to tell the type of email when "Square Network Email" is all that is listed. Our received list dropped down by 1,200 people this time. While just a month ago the entire list was being sent out. Any other solutions???

[theoldtownshop]

We are still having an issue with our email campaigns. For a few emails everything seemed fine and now it is back to not sending to the entire list. I checked to see which emails bounced and a lot of them were not YAHOO or AOL. Also, it is hard to tell the type of email when "Square Network Email" is all that is listed. Our received list dropped down by 1,200 people this time. While just a month ago the entire list was being sent out. Any other solutions???

[JJ_]

Hello there @theoldtownshop

Have you reached out to our Support Team? If this is happening constantly they might be able to take a closer look at what could be causing this.

[JoeTend]

hi @MayaP Yes, this is the same answer I was given when I contacted Customer Service directly. However the reason I'm posting here is that we ARE seeing those major fluctuations (greater than 10%) and it only started in mid-March of this year. Going back to 2018, our total "recipients" mostly on grew from send to send (with some minor acceptions). Now suddenly we're losing and gaining hundreds of "recipients" in matters of days per these reports. I track my subscribers every week, and YTD we've gained 77 net email subscribers since January. And weekly, the "bounced" number in my emails is about 75 addresses. I'm adding another screenshot from earlier this year where you see there's a drop of almost 1,000 "recipients" within 10 days (between 3/7/24 and 3/17/24) . And then the number creeps back up to normal but drops again send-to-send. 

I guess I'm looking some deeper answers here rather than the stock response. Anyone able to help?

Thanks.

Joe

[BernadetteA]

Hi @JoeTend Did you provide the same information to the rep when they said it would be an issue over 20%, and you noticed that it was? If so, did they mention escalating to the advanced support team for investigation? 

[JoeTend]

I did, but I'm not aware of an advanced support team. Is there a contact number for that?

[BernadetteA]

That team does not have a direct number, but when you speak with a support rep they can absolutely reach out to the advanced support team, and if needed, will escalate a ticket to them to investigate. 

Phone teams are limited to specific accounts on the weekend, but both the messaging/chat team and members of the advanced support team will be available through the weekend, 6am-6pm. I recommend trying the team once more to see if they can escalate. If not, please let me know here, and I'll see if there's anything I can do once I return from the weekend. 

I'm sorry again for the frustrating experience with this. I can totally understand wanting to get to the bottom of the why.

[JoeTend]

Hi @BernadetteA 

Thanks for the message. I actually went back into my history and found that my issue actually was sent to the Advanced team when I last reported in mid-March of this year. And like I mentioned before it was just returned to me as "I received a response from the internal team that 1000 emails were bounced in the email marketing but all are fine now." But clearly this is not fine. This week alone I've seen my email sends go from 5,851 to 6,086 to 5,185 to 5,267. A swing of 900 recipients from the highest too lowest. And still, my email subscriber count is 6,404.

If there's anything you can do to push this along and escalate this, I'd appreciate it. 

[JoeTend]

@BernadetteA - wondering if you've come accross any other info here? I'm now seeing in reporting that the number of bounces has doubled or tripled in some cases. Was this a reporting issue all along? Any more thoughts on what's going on?