How to find out why an email didn't send in Rainmaker

An approved email can be held back for two kinds of reason. Either it is still waiting on something, such as the send window, a daily cap or a paused campaign, or it was handed to the email service and failed there. The lead's details tell you which, and the Inbox lists every failed send with its reason.

1. Check the email in the lead's details

Open the campaign, go to its Leads tab and click the person's name. Under Sequence, each step shows its status: approved means it is waiting to send, sent means it went out and send failed means the email service refused it.

Click Why hasn't this sent? under an approved or failed email step that is due. Rainmaker goes through every check the email has to pass before it can send and marks the one holding it back, for example a paused campaign, the send window, a daily cap, a reply or meeting that stopped the sequence, or a contact who opted out. The first line says what is going on: Held back: or Waiting: followed by the reason, for example Waiting: It is outside the campaign's sending hours; it will send when they next open., or Every check passes — this email goes out on the next send run. Below it, each check has a plain name, such as Campaign status, Sending hours, Daily budget, Opt-outs or Sending mailbox, with one sentence saying whether it passes.

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2. Read the reason on the Failed tab

In the sidebar, click Inbox & Meetings, then the Failed tab. It lists every email the email service refused, with the lead, the campaign, the step, when it was tried and, under Why, the reason in plain words. For example:

• The email service is rate-limiting sends right now — retrying will pick it back up.
• The email service was temporarily unavailable — retrying will pick it back up.
• The email service refused this send: sending domain not verified.
• The email service refused this send: sending credentials were rejected.

Use the campaign menu above the table to show one campaign only.

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3. Fix the cause, then retry

A rate limit or a temporary outage clears by itself. A domain or credentials problem does not: fix it first, usually by reconnecting your mailbox, or the retry fails the same way.

Then click Retry on the row. You see Queued for retry — it will send on the next pass, subject to the usual caps and send window. The email leaves the Failed tab and goes back into the queue. It sends on the next sending pass, inside the campaign's send window and daily caps, so it may not go out the same minute.

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If nothing failed but nothing sends

When the Failed tab is empty and an approved email still hasn't gone out, the campaign itself may be paused. See resume a campaign after an automatic pause. If the email was blocked because it states something its sources don't support, see fix a blocked draft.