Why my email campaign is put on hold?

Why my email campaign is put on hold?

Every email goes through a review process where our moderator reviews it and ensures that your email meets our industry standards.

Often, the emails are approved without any further questions from our end. However, if we need more information from you, we send a notification email that your email campaign is put on hold. We also give you a clear information on what needs to be done to get your email approved. We strongly recommend you to act on our suggestions (as instructed in the notification email) and resend your email campaign for review. For further assistance contact our support team at support@zohocampaigns.com

Apart from notification email, you’ll receive an alert notification on top-right corner of your Zoho Campaigns screen.  

Below are the possible cases when your email could be put on hold. Check the reason for your account suspension and follow our suggestions below to resolve it.

Sender address

  • Public domain

  • An email campaign can be put on hold if you are trying to use a public domain sender address (for example, Gmail, Outlook) to send emails.

    What we recommend: Please use your own business domain address to send emails.

  • No-reply sender address

  • If your sender address for a campaign contains 'no-reply', then your email recipients may become less responsive. This will lead to a lesser email open and click rates.

    What we recommend: Please use a personal sender email address (For example, john@yourdomain.com patricia@mydomain.com ).

  • Sender address domain blacklist

  • An email is put on hold when your sender address domain has been blacklisted. Emails sent from a blacklisted sender domain are more likely to land in spam folder.

    What we recommend: Please delist your sender address domain before sending any more campaigns.

  • New sender domain

  • An email is put on hold when you are sending emails to a lot of contacts from a new sender domain.

    Please share the following information with us:

    • Source of your mailing list.
    • Have your contacts gone through a double opt-in subscription process?
  • Sender domain clarification

  • An email is put on hold when we need more information about your domain.

    Please provide us the following information:

    1. Nature of your business.
    2. Source of your mailing list - Where and how did your contacts choose to receive your newsletters?

Content in email subject

  • Subject

  • An email is put on hold when its subject line contains words that can negatively impact the deliverability rate of your campaign (For example, 'Free', 'Discount', 'Offer').

    What we recommend: Please change the subject line and resubmit your campaign for review.

  • Re. and Fwd. in subject

  • An email campaign is put on hold when its subject line starts with Re./Fwd. Marketing emails don't have reply and forward tags by default. So, using reply and forward mail tags in the subject line will negatively impact your email deliverability.

    What we recommend: Please remove these tags from your subject line and resend the campaign for review.

  • ALL CAPS in subject

  • Using an ALL CAPS in email campaigns leads to low open rates and creates suspicion among spam filters. So, an email with ALL CAPS is put on hold.

    What we recommend: Edit the subject line and resubmit your campaign for review.

  • Special characters

  • Special characters (for example, !@#$%^&*()_+) in email subject lines create a suspicion among spam filters and can make the email land in spam. So, an email with too many special characters is put on hold.

    What we recommend: Edit the subject line and resubmit your campaign for review.

To learn how to write an engaging email subject, click here .

Content in email message

  • Test message in email content

  • An email is put on hold when the campaign contains test content and you're about to send it to a lot of your email recipients.

    What we recommend: Please check your campaign content and resubmit it for review.

  • Single image in email content

  • An email campaign is put on hold when the campaign consists of a single image. Image-only content is not advisable as some mailbox providers do not display images by default. So, only an empty email will be visible to your recipients.

    What we recommend: Please use both images and text in your content, and then resubmit your campaign for review.

  • An email is put on hold when you have either removed or hidden the 'unsubscribe' link. According to the CAN-SPAM act, it is mandatory to include unsubscribe links in marketing emails.

    What we recommend: Please include/unhide the unsubscribe link in your campaign and resubmit it for review.

  • Content alignment issue

  • An email campaign is put on hold when the text content in your campaign is misaligned which may reduce campaign engagement with your email recipients.

    What we recommend: Please align the content and resubmit your campaign for review.

  • URL is not working

  • An email is put on hold when at least one of the URLs in it is not working.

    What we recommend: Please double check your links, and resubmit the campaign for review.

  • Images are not loading

  • An email is put on hold when the image in your campaign is not loading.

    What we recommend: Re-upload the image and resubmit campaign for review.

  • Suspicious email content

  • If an email content looks like spam, spam filters feel suspicious and make it land in spam. So, we put emails with suspicious email content on hold.

    To learn how to avoid spam filters, click here .

  • First name merge tag  

    An email is put on hold when the first name merge tag isn't a Zoho Campaigns supported merge tag.

    What we recommend: Zoho Campaigns merge tag is ($[FNAME]$), please insert this merge tag and resubmit your campaign for review.

    To learn more on merge tags, click here .
  • Last name merge tag

    An email is put on hold when the last name merge tag isn't a Zoho Campaigns supported merge tag.

    What we recommend:  Zoho Campaigns Merge Tag - ($[LNAME]$), please insert this merge tag and resubmit your campaign for review.

  • To learn more on merge tags, click here .

  • Pre-designed template content

     An email is put on hold when you are about to send a pre-designed, unedited content to a lot of your email recipients.

    What we recommend: Add your own content in the template and then resubmit your campaign for review.

  • Shortened URLs from public services

  • Shortened URLs from public services are affected by the domain reputation of that URL shortening service. So, emails with shortened URLs from public services are more likely to land in spam folder.

    What we recommend: Use a shortened URL with your own domain.

  • An email is put on hold when the footer doesn't have proper business and contact information. According to the CAN-SPAM Act, every marketer is bound to provide valid business and contact information in their marketing emails. To learn what to add in footer information, click here .

    What we recommend: Add the required footer information and resubmit your campaign for review.
  • URL in content blacklisted

  • If the domain of the URLs linked in your email has been blacklisted, your emails are more likely to land in spam folder.

    What we recommend: If you would like to use the links, delist the domain. To learn more about blacklisted domain, click here .
  • Multiple redirection URLs

    An email is put on hold when at least one of the links in your campaign is a multiple redirection link.

    What we recommend: Include the final destination link and resubmit your campaign for review.
  • Banking spam

  • If your email resembles online payment or banking emails (for example, PayPal, HSBC, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, etc), it creates suspicion among spam filters. So, we restrict such emails. For further clarifications, please contact support@zohocampaigns.com.

  • Restricted email content

  • If an email content consists of Multi Level Marketing (MLM), electronic cigarettes, pharmaceutical products, or gambling services, it is put on hold.

  • An email is put on hold if it has two footers. This commonly happens when you copy and paste content from another campaign.

    What we recommend: Remove one of the footers and resubmit your campaign for review.
  • Spam-like images

    An email is put on hold when you’ve used images that resemble spam, which will have a bad impact on your email deliverability rates and sender domain reputation. 

    What we recommend: Please remove the image from your email and resubmit your campaign for review.

  Mailing list

  • High bounce rate

  • An email is put on hold when some of your previous campaigns have had high bounce rates.

    We would like to know the following information:

    1. Source of your mailing list - Where and how did your email recipients choose to receive your newsletters?
    2. Sign up form URL through which your email recipients subscribed to your mailing list.
  • Frequent removal and addition of contacts

  • When you frequently add and delete email addresses from your mailing list, there are more chances for contact engagement gap and sending duplicate campaigns to the same lead. To avoid these adverse effects, we recommend you to have a consistent mailing list.

    What we recommend: Please reach out to us and let us know the reason for frequently adding and deleting email addresses.

  • Abuse complaints

  • When some of your previous campaigns have received abuse complaints it leads to domain/IP blacklisting. At Zoho Campaigns, we follow a zero tolerance policy towards spammers and abuse email senders. So, we recommend you to send the below information so that we can understand the reason for abuse complaints in your emails.

    1. Source of your mailing list - Where and how did your contact choose to receive your newsletters?
    2. Did your contacts enter your mailing list through double opt-in subscription process?
    3. Sign up form URL.
  • Contact clarification

  • An email is put on hold until we have more information on the source of your mailing list.

    Please share the following information with us:

    1. Nature of business.
    2. Source of your mailing list - Where and how did your contacts choose to receive your newsletters?
    3. Sign up form URL.

Email sending practices

  • Attaching .exe file

  • If you have attached an auto-download executable (.exe) file link in your email it will make your email land in the spam folder.

    What we recommend: If your contacts need access to an .exe file, create a page on your website where they can download the file, then add the URL of that page URL to your campaign.

  • Frequent campaigns

  • When you send emails too frequently to your contacts, there are more chances that they can get frustrated and mark it as spam or unsubscribe.

    What we recommend: Plan and schedule your emails such that you don't bombard your recipient's inboxes. To learn how to set email frequency limits with Zoho Campaigns, click here .


    • Related Articles

    • What will you check when you review my campaign?

      During the review process, the moderation team will verify the following factors: Content—Adherence to basic guidelines for crafting email content and avoiding objectionable content that might get classified as spam. Verification of the links and ...
    • Create an email campaign

      Email marketing is considered the simple and most effective method to reach out your leads and contacts. The best part is that the return on investment (ROI) is much higher than other marketing channels making it as the most affordable way of ...
    • Things to do when your email campaign hasn't performed well

      Sometimes marketers put painstaking effort into conceptualizing an email campaign only to just move on to the next campaign after it is sent. However, does a marketer's role end right after sending the email campaign? The answer is an astounding ...
    • Sending Email Invite for Your Page Campaign

      An email invite will be sent to subscribers to inform them about a new page tab campaign you have posted on Facebook page. This will helps you garner more attention to your campaign than it would without this feature. To create an email invite: From ...
    • Plain-text Campaign

      These are simple emails without images or logos. The purpose is to send the message without losing any content. It has been found that plain text version shows a high degree of email deliverability. How to monitor plain-text campaigns? You can track ...