Invalid and Bounced Emails

Any Panelist or Admin account that cannot receive email messages is deemed to have a rejected email address. Once an email address is rejected, the associated user account will no longer be sent Recollective notifications.

If you experience a high email rejection rate, it might be an issue with the Sending Email Address configured for the site. Learn more about email authentication.

Fixing an Invalid Email

Repairing the status of an account with a rejected email is done by simply changing the address. Analysts can also remove the rejection status on the Edit Panelist or Edit Admin page if the issue was temporary (e.g. the user's mailbox was full but it now has capacity).

Warnings to Administrators

Rejected email addresses appear with a red strikethrough style in the Site Administration area. The date and reason of the email rejection is tracked and shown when editing user accounts.

The email history for a user will show which messages were Not Delivered. It is possible to resend missed emails after the address is fixed.

Administrators will also see warnings about participants with rejected email addresses when they view participant profile information inside a Study.

Warning to Users

Users with an invalid email are encouraged to update their own email address upon their next visit. A red banner will appear along the top of the page for the duration of the user's visit until they change their email.

Email Verification Process

Recollective automatically validates emails as they are provided during registration and account management in Site Administration.

Accounts that are bulk imported will be verified upon the first email delivery to that account. Recollective performs a three-step validation check for each address, including a check against the mailbox provider to determine if the address is valid.

All major email service providers have their own custom grammar that impact whether an email address is valid in the real world. Recollective has integrated custom grammar checks for Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo and we'll add more custom checks as needed.

Typos are common and so gmail.com can easily become gmal.com. Recollective automatically offers suggestions for common typos.

Tracking Bounced Emails

Email messages, even when the address is deemed valid, can still be undeliverable. It might take hours or days for an email to bounce back.

Recollective ensures that the last email sent to the address was not returned before sending a new message. If the last email did bounce back, the email address is then also marked as rejected.

You can Customize the site's Sending Email Address if you want to receive an email notification about each bounced email but you must first learn about email authentication and how to configure the site email addresses.