Klaviyo, like any email service provider, can experience temporary sending issues. When these occur, the critical question for marketers is whether to trust the 'fixed' status reports and resume or resend campaigns. This summary outlines key considerations for evaluating the stability of Klaviyo's sending infrastructure and making informed decisions about your email strategy during or after an incident.
Key findings
Status page reliability: While official status pages (like Klaviyo's) are crucial, they may sometimes indicate a fix before complete stability is achieved, especially for complex issues.
Intermittent issues: Problems like elevated hard bounce rates can be intermittent, meaning some emails might get through even during an ongoing issue, making a 'fix' seem premature.
Monitoring period: Some experts recommend waiting 48-72 hours after an announced fix to confirm true resolution, especially if the issue has recurred. This cautious approach helps prevent further deliverability damage.
Hard bounce spikes: Significant increases in hard bounces, particularly to major ISPs like Gmail, are a strong indicator of an active or recurring sending problem, even if the status page indicates otherwise.
Key considerations
Verify internally: Before resuming large sends, cross-reference the ESP's status with your own internal monitoring of bounce rates and inbox placement. Utilize a robust email deliverability tester.
Consider impact of resends: Resending emails, especially to non-openers, can sometimes harm deliverability if not done carefully and when issues persist. Review best practices for resending emails.
Communicate with support: Engage directly with your ESP's support team for real-time updates and guidance specific to your account's sending patterns.
Assess risk tolerance: For highly critical campaigns, a conservative waiting period might be preferable over immediate resending, even if the issue appears resolved. Understand why emails go to spam.
What email marketers say
Email marketers often face a dilemma when their ESP reports a fix for sending issues. The general sentiment among marketers is one of caution, as a reported fix doesn't always translate to immediate, stable resolution. Their experiences highlight the importance of personal observation and a degree of skepticism.
Key opinions
Cautious approach: Many marketers prefer to wait a significant period (e.g., 48-72 hours) after a 'fix' is announced before fully trusting the system.
Intermittent fixes: There's an understanding that initial 'fixes' might be temporary or partial, with issues recurring soon after.
Personal experience over status page: Marketers tend to rely on their own real-time bounce rate monitoring and deliverability metrics more than solely on the ESP's status page.
Varying impact: Some marketers may not experience issues or see them resolved quickly, while others continue to report problems like elevated hard bounces.
Key considerations
Monitor your metrics: Continuously check your campaign performance, bounce rates, and engagement data for signs of lingering issues. This is key to understanding why your email deliverability rate is wrong.
Consult ESP support: If you have an account manager or dedicated support, leverage their advice on specific sending plans, particularly for critical campaigns.
Segment sensitive sends: For crucial emails, consider a phased re-sending approach to a small, highly engaged segment first to test the waters. This aligns with splitting sends to engaged users.
Understand bounce types: Be aware that elevated hard bounces (permanent failures) are more concerning than soft bounces (temporary issues), indicating a potentially deeper underlying problem with the sending infrastructure or recipient servers.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks observes that not everyone is waiting to send, as issues can be intermittent with some emails still getting through. They recommend caution, as a 'fixed' status might not be stable, especially if problems have recurred.
16 Dec 2020 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks, who is not a Klaviyo user, confirms that they have not seen any Gmail hard bounces since the previous day. This suggests that the issue might be localized or resolved for some sending patterns.
16 Dec 2020 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
Email deliverability experts typically advise a pragmatic approach to reported 'fixes' from ESPs, especially when dealing with complex infrastructure issues. Their insights often focus on the underlying nature of the problem and the time required for a truly stable resolution, rather than just the immediate status update.
Key opinions
Stability window: Experts emphasize the need for a sustained period (e.g., 2-3 days) of no reported issues before confidently declaring a resolution.
Deep-seated issues: Some problems might be indicative of deeper, structural issues rather than simple fixes, requiring a 'patch and observe' approach that can lead to recurring problems.
Data-driven trust: While ESPs monitor their data closely, external experts might look for a longer trend of stability before advising clients to fully resume normal operations.
Postmaster communication: Insights from Postmaster communities (like Mailop) can provide a more granular view of ongoing issues, even if not directly reflected on status pages.
Key considerations
Long-term reputation impact: Repeated sending during an unstable period can negatively impact your sender reputation, making it harder to recover even after the ESP's issues are fixed. Understand how to recover your email domain and IP reputation.
) for direct signals from ISPs about your sending health.
Root cause analysis: For recurring issues, an expert might delve into the root cause beyond surface-level symptoms, such as SPF, DKIM, or DMARC misconfigurations, to prevent future occurrences. Learn about DMARC, SPF, and DKIM
Alternative sending plans: Having contingency plans or backup sending methods can mitigate risk during prolonged ESP outages or intermittent issues, as suggested by deliverability experts
at Word to the Wise
Expert view
Deliverability expert from Email Geeks suggests that a true resolution for intermittent issues requires a longer monitoring period, proposing 48 to 72 hours as a confident threshold, rather than immediate trust in a 'fixed' status.
16 Dec 2020 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Deliverability expert from Email Geeks further elaborates that the symptoms and external comments suggest the issue might not be an easy fix, leaning more towards a 'patch and see if something else breaks' situation, indicating potential instability.
16 Dec 2020 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
Official documentation from ESPs typically provides guidelines for troubleshooting and understanding deliverability, emphasizing the tools they offer for monitoring account health. While these resources confirm issues are being addressed, they also implicitly place responsibility on the user to understand their own sending patterns and performance.
Key findings
Deliverability hub: Platforms like Klaviyo provide a 'Deliverability hub' for analyzing and diagnosing account-level email health, suggesting that users should actively use these tools.
Troubleshooting resources: Documentation often includes extensive troubleshooting guides for common issues, including emails going to spam or template errors.
Resend functionality: ESPs provide mechanisms to resend emails, but the documentation implies this is a user-initiated action that should be used judiciously.
Data discrepancies: Documentation may offer solutions for discrepancies between platform data and external analytics, highlighting the complexity of tracking.
Key considerations
Leverage internal tools: Rely on your ESP's deliverability tools and reports to understand your specific account's health rather than assuming system-wide issues are resolved for everyone.
Understand ESP limitations: While ESPs strive for high deliverability, the ultimate success of an email depends on numerous factors beyond their control, including recipient ISP filters and sender reputation, so monitor your blocklist monitoring.
Support contact points: Familiarize yourself with the available support channels and their typical response times, especially for urgent deliverability concerns.
Technical article
Documentation from Klaviyo Help Center describes their Deliverability Hub as a tool for analyzing and diagnosing account-level email and SMS deliverability health. This indicates the availability of resources for users to self-monitor.
22 Mar 2025 - Klaviyo Help Center
Technical article
Documentation from Klaviyo Help Center outlines the process for resending flow messages by hovering over a profile and clicking 'Resend'. This confirms the functional ability to re-engage recipients after a sending issue.