What to do after an Amazon SES Enforcement Notification
by John
on Sep 25 17
by John
on Sep 25 17
The Amazon SES Enforcement notification is for most of the bloggers who use Amazon SES an unexpected notification that requires an immediate action if you don’t want to lose your access to the Amazon SES account.
What are the important concepts to understand about this enforcement action from Amazon.
Amazon monitors your sending behavior every time. Having a high bounce rate can cause your account to be suspended temporarily or permanently.
Amazon expects their senders to have a bounce rate below the 5%. Bounce rate higher than this percentage is considered bad and if you have a higher bounce exceeding 10% causes your account to have a high risk for suspension.
The bounce rate is based on the number of hard bounces (notices that the address you tried to send to does not exist). Soft bounces instead are not included when Amazon calculates the sending statistics. Sending to domains you have verified is also not considered in this calculation. A high bounce rate generally indicates problems with mailing list management that needs to be resolved if you want to reinstate your account at Amazon SES for the data center under risk.
Common reasons why you could be having a high bounce rate:
A high bounce rate is interpreted by most mailbox providers as a sign that the sender is not properly managing their email list, for this purpose having a cleaned list and taking routinary actions to clean your list, is considered a best practice. This is where Unmailable can help you, especially if you do not have other mechanism in place to validate your email list on your systems. Sending unsolicited email is a signal that mailbox providers take seriously. Amazon SES also takes this signal seriously and takes action when bounce rates are high, exceeding the 10% threshold.
Notifications timeline:
Amazon SES Bounce Probation for AWS Account
The Amazon SES sending for AWS accountXXXXXXXXXXXX, which lists you as a contact or owner, has been put on probation in AWS region US East (N. Virginia). You may still send mail with this account, but if you do not fully address the problem(s) listed, you will lose your ability to send with SES at the end of the probation period.
Amazon SES Immediate Bounce Suspension for AWS Account
You will receive an email starting with something like this:
There is an issue with your Amazon SES sending that requires your attention. Please see below for details and next steps.
Your Amazon Simple Email Service Appeal
If the decision from Amazon is in your favor, then you will receive an email with something like this:
Thank you for contacting the Amazon SES team.Your account has been reinstated in AWS Region US East (N. Virginia).
Amazon SES Reinstatement
Now, the good news.
Hello,
The Amazon SES sending for AWS account XXXXXXXXXXXX was previously suspended in AWS region US East (N. Virginia). As a result of a decision by the Amazon SES team, your sending ability has been reinstated. The statistics for the account have been reset.
Please continue to monitor your sending because if the underlying issue has not truly been addressed, your account will be at risk of another suspension.
Thank you.