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Frequently asked questions

This article provides answers to some frequently asked questions about emails.

What happens when an email is sent out, and multiple profiles have the same email address?

If multiple users with matching email addresses are in a segment to receive a campaign, a random user profile with that email address is selected at send time. This way, the email is sent only once and deduplicated, ensuring it doesn’t reach the same email address multiple times.

The following scenarios that can make it seem like a user received an email twice:

  • An error occurred during campaign or Canvas creation: The user may not receive the literal same send twice, but may receive two separate emails with the same subject line. When a campaign or Canvas is duplicated, check email configuration details such as images or subject lines. You can also refer to changelogs to see if the campaign or Canvas was modified after launch—a duplicate may share the same subject line as the original when the user received it.
  • Multiple user profiles have email forwarding: If a user has multiple accounts in a given app but one account forwards mail, the user receives the campaign once per inbox; mail can appear twice in the inbox where messages are forwarded. Only some providers indicate when an email was forwarded from another account.
  • Email configuration at the recipient: Some clients merge inboxes (“universal inbox”). If the same campaign targets multiple accounts that share one inbox, it can look like one person got the campaign twice when two distinct profiles were actually messaged. The recipient can confirm whether multiple accounts are combined in one inbox.

Note that this deduplication occurs when the targeted users are included in the same dispatch. Triggered campaigns may result in multiple sends to the same email address (even within a period when users could be excluded due to re-eligibility) if different users with matching email addresses log the trigger event at different times. Users are not deduped by email on Canvas entry, so they may not be deduped beyond the first step of a Canvas if they progress at slightly different times due to rate-limited entry. When a user associated with a given email address opens or clicks an email, all user profiles that share that email address are marked as having opened or clicked the campaign.

Exception: API-triggered campaigns

API-triggered campaigns will deduplicate or send deduplicates depending on where the audience is defined. Duplicate emails must be targeted separately in the API call using distinct user_ids to receive multiple details. Here are three possible scenarios for API-triggered campaigns:

  • Scenario 1: Duplicate emails in target segment: If the same email appears in multiple user profiles that are grouped in the dashboard’s audience filters for an API-triggered campaign, only one of the profiles receives the email.
  • Scenario 2: Duplicate emails in different user_ids within recipients object: If the same email appears within multiple external_user_id values referenced by the recipients object, the email is sent twice.
  • Scenario 3: Duplicate emails due to duplicate user_ids within the recipients object: If you try to add the same user profile twice, only one of the profiles receives the email.

Will updates to my outbound email settings apply retroactively?

No. Updates made to the outbound email settings do not retroactively affect existing sends. For example, changing your default display name in the email settings will not automatically replace the existing default display name in your active campaigns or Canvases.

What is a “good” email delivery rate?

Typically, the “magic number” is around 98% of messages delivered with a bounce rate no higher than 3%. If your delivery dips below that, there is usually cause for concern.

However, a rate above 98% can still have deliverability issues. For example, if all your bounces come from a single domain, that is a clear signal of a reputation issue with that provider.

Additionally, messages may be getting delivered and ending up in Spam, indicating potentially serious reputation issues. It’s important to monitor not just the number of messages being delivered, but also open and click rates to determine whether users are actually seeing the messages in their inboxes. Because providers usually don’t report every spam instance, a spam rate of even 1% could be cause for concern and further analysis.

Finally, your business and the types of emails you send may also affect delivery. For example, someone sending mostly transactional emails should expect to see a better rate than someone sending many marketing messages.

Why are my email delivery metrics not adding up to 100%?

Email delivery metrics (deliveries, bounces, and spam rate) may not add up to 100% because of emails that are soft bounced and then not delivered after the retry period of up to 72 hours.

Soft bounces are emails that bounce due to a temporary or transient issue, such as “mailbox full,” “server temporarily not available,” and more. If a soft bounced email is still not delivered after 72 hours, this email will not be accounted for in the campaign delivery metrics.

What is an email feedback loop?

An email feedback loop (FBL) allows senders to monitor their reputation by identifying campaigns that receive a high volume of complaints. For steps to implement a Gmail feedback loop, see Google’s Feedback Loop article.

What are open tracking pixels?

Open tracking pixels leverage a sender’s email click tracking domain to track email open events. The pixel is an image tag appended to the email’s HTML. It is most commonly the last HTML element within the body tag. When a user loads their email, a request is made to populate the image from the branded tracking domain, which logs an open event.

What happens when an email campaign or Canvas is stopped?

Users are prevented from entering the Canvas, and no further messages are sent out.

For email campaigns and Canvases, the stop button does not immediately stop the send. When the send requests are sent, they cannot be stopped from being delivered to the user, which may happen after some delay.

While Braze won’t send further requests once the campaign or Canvas is stopped, analytics may still increase while the ESP finishes processing requests already in flight.

Why am I seeing more email clicks than opens?

You may be seeing more clicks than opens for any of the following reasons:

  • Users are performing multiple clicks on the body of the email within a single open.
  • Users click on some email links within the preview pane of their phones. In this case, Braze logs this email as being clicked but not opened.
  • Users reopen an email that they previewed earlier.

Why am I seeing zero email opens and clicks?

You may see no email opens or clicks if there’s a misconfiguration in your tracking domain. This can be due to any of the following reasons:

  • There is an SSL issue where tracking URLs are http instead of https.
  • There is an issue with your CDN where the user agent string on the open events, click events, or both aren’t populating.

What are the potential risks of triggering server clicks?

Certain elements of an email message, such as overly long messages or too many exclamation marks, can trigger email security responses. These responses can affect reporting and IP reputation and lead users to unsubscribe.

For best practices on how to handle these responses, refer to Handling increases in click rates.

Braze tracks unsubscribe links if the following Liquid is used within emails: ${set_user_to_unsubscribed_url}

If there are more Unsubscribes than users who clicked the unsubscribe link in the email body, list-unsubscribe header actions often explain the gap—a click on the list-unsubscribe header counts as an Unsubscribe but not as a Click on the body link.

If the total number of clicks on the body unsubscribe link is greater than the number of Unsubscribes, users may have clicked the link more than once.

No. Braze does not offer this functionality. This is because a growing majority of email is opened on mobile devices and in modern email clients, which render images and content without issues.

Workaround: To achieve this same result, you can host the content of your email on an external landing page (such as your website), which can then be linked to from the email campaign you are building using the Link tool when editing the email body.

Why are my users being auto-unsubscribed by email security software?

Some corporate email security tools (such as Barracuda, Proofpoint, and similar services) pre-fetch or scan all URLs in incoming emails, including unsubscribe links. This can cause unintended unsubscribes when the security tool follows the one-click list-unsubscribe link.

To mitigate this:

  • Recommend recipients allowlist your sending domain: Work with the affected recipients’ IT teams to add your sending domain and Braze tracking domains to their email security allow list.
  • Use a preference center: Instead of a direct unsubscribe link, use a preference center that requires user interaction to confirm the unsubscribe action. Security scanners typically won’t complete multi-step forms.
  • Review unsubscribe logs: Check the User-Agent header and IP address in your Currents unsubscribe event data to identify patterns consistent with automated scanning (such as consistent User-Agent headers across multiple unsubscribes).

For more details on how server-side scanning can affect email metrics, refer to Handling increases in click rates.

Why has my machine open rate changed unexpectedly?

Machine opens are triggered by email security features such as Apple Mail Privacy Protection (MPP), which pre-loads email content (including the tracking pixel) without the user physically opening the email. Machine open rates can fluctuate based on:

  • Changes in the proportion of your audience using Apple Mail or other privacy-enabled email clients.
  • Updates to email provider privacy features or bot detection behaviors.
  • Changes in your audience segmentation or targeting.

Machine open percentages are not a reliable measure of actual engagement. For a more accurate view of email performance, focus on Other Opens (non-machine opens) and Unique Clicks. You can also compare these metrics over time using the Email Performance Dashboard.

Does the Unique Opens metric include Machine Opens?

Yes. Unique Opens include Machine Opens. In the Campaign Analytics page and Report Builder, you can view both metrics.

Why does my email delivery volume not match my send volume?

After an email is sent, the recipient’s inbox decides when it is delivered. Messages can be deferred for hours or days because of a full mailbox, ESP throttling from a given IP, and similar reasons.

When deferred messages are delivered on a different calendar day than the send day, Deliveries can exceed Sends for the same date range. When many deferrals land on one day, Sends can exceed Deliveries for that range.

This warning can persist for campaigns duplicated from a campaign that did not have an unsubscribe link. To clear it:

  • For HTML emails, go to the Plaintext tab, then select Regenerate from HTML.
  • After duplicating, duplicate the variant, then remove the original variant. Do not select the original variant, or the warning can carry over.

What are reasons why my user hasn’t received an email campaign?

Reasons why a user hasn’t received an email campaign include:

  • They weren’t eligible to receive the email.
  • Their email address is invalid or doesn’t exist.
  • They may have missed or deleted the message.
  • The message may be in their spam folder.

How can I optimize images in Outlook?

Outlook often uses Microsoft Word–style rendering, which can add a border around images. You can wrap content so it hides in Office clients using standard conditional comments, for example:

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<!--[if !mso]><!-- -->
<span>Content hidden in Outlook desktop</span>
<!--<![endif]-->

Can I use SVG or WEBP images in my email messages?

SVG images won’t render in Gmail web or Gmail iOS. WEBP is not consistently supported across clients. Instead, use widely supported formats such as PNG or JPEG so images render reliably.

Can Liquid variables assigned in one part of the message composer be used in another?

No. Each part of the email (subject, body, headers, buttons, and so on) is generated separately, so Liquid assigned in one field is not available in another. Assign variables in each field that needs them.

My email template is missing. Where is it?

Go to Templates > Email Templates. You can filter by type (HTML or drag-and-drop).

Confirm you have permission to view templates—see User permissions.
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