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What are the complaint limits of SES?

edited July 2013 in Questions

I recently sent an email newsletter to an old mailing list (7 years) thats never been emailed to before. The list has 110,000 subscribers but I had to split this over 3 email lists in sendy as Amazon only gave us 50,000 credits / per 24 hours.

here are the stats:

List 1
Sent: 45,990
Opened: 14.59%
Clicked: 0.29%
Unsubscribed: 1.9%
Bounced: 8.9%
Spam: 0.98%

List 2
Sent: 45,985
Opened: 11.53%
Clicked: 0.25%
Unsubscribed: 1.4%
Bounced: 3.5%
Spam: 0.59%

List 3
Sent: 9,987
Opened: 12.5%
Clicked: 0.6%
Unsubscribed: 1.5%
Bounced: 8.1%
Spam: 0.48%

I then received this email from Amazon....

We have detected a problem with your Amazon Simple Email Service (Amazon SES) sending that has put your Amazon SES account on probationary status. If you wish to appeal this probation, please respond to this email with details of how you will fix this problem or why you think this notice may be incorrect.

We have provided details of the problem below, and you should fix the problem before you send the number of emails indicated. If the issue has not improved by the end of the allotted sending, your Amazon SES sending privileges will be suspended. Also, if your problematic metric exceeds certain thresholds, you will have your sending privileges suspended immediately.

*Unacceptably High Complaint Rate: You received complaints on 245 of the last approximately 32,000 email messages you sent to ISPs that report complaints to Amazon SES.
*This issue must be fixed within the next 190,000 emails you send.

Is this something I should be worried about? I emailed them back saying it was an old list that has never been mailed to before and that people would probably have forgotten that they've signed up. Obviously when I send my next email the people who marked my email as spam, bounced or unsubscribed won't receive the next one so I'm hoping my stats will be lower but I'm a bit worried about sending anything after receiving that email.

Does anyone know the percentage limits I should be aiming for? 245 out of 32,000 suggests a 0.76% limit

I've read the Amazon best practice guide which suggests to remove the old emails, but i''d like to reengage my old customers..

Comments

  • BenBen
    edited September 2015

    Hi @sayre,

    Their limit for bounce rates is 5%. List 1 and 3 has bounce rates of over 8%, that may be why your account is placed under probation,

    Best regards,
    Ben

  • thanks Ben, hopefully my next mail outs will be a lot lower

  • I would normally say a list that old should just be trashed, but you've already mailed them and the open rates aren't too bad. Standard spam complaints should stay below .1 and your first mailing is near 10 times that. That's definitely an issue. As you guessed, your bounce rates should only go down from here but your complaints may go up. Are these prospects or customers?

  • thanks Orange, their our customers..

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