Amazon SES and Bounce Handling

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Day Trade The World™

New Member
Hi guys,

That's my first post, so first of all I would congratulate to you all guys for bringing this amazing email system to us!

So basically what happened was that a week ago I sent a campaign to 30,000~40,000 contacts through Amazon SES. Since the full list was merged using many sub-lists (many of them were contacts gathered 2-3 years ago) I was expecting to get back some bounces.
At the end, I reached a bounce rate of 20~25% and I've been contacted by Amazon SES team to warn me that my account was in a probation status due to high bounce rate.

I studied a couple of things about bounce handling, tracking and management, but I didn't succeed in set up a bounce server in mailwizz.

By reading in your forum I found many of you saying that if I'm using the web api of amazon ses, a bounce server is not required.

My question is, how can I set up properly a bounce server on mailwizz? There is a way to test/track bounce handling in order to mark/delete emails that do not exist?

Thanks
 
@Day Trade The World™ - Your understanding is correct, if you use a delivery server of type amazon ses web api, then you don't need to worry about bounce handling, mailwizz does it for you automatically and you can see the results in the campaign stats.

Now, if you are using the amazon ses smtp instead, and you want to add your own bounce server, then you can do it, just add the bounce server, associate it with the delivery server and in amazon console make sure you forward the bounces to the email address from the bounce server. But why go through all of this if using amazon ses web api automates this ?
 
That's correct, but how do I set up a ses web abi connection instead of a smtp one?
Honestly I did not found anything about that but a video that explains how to create credentials on the amazon side.
 
@Day Trade The World™ - Ah, well, Amazon SES WEB API is just another delivery server type, so when you create a delivery server, select it from the list of available server types, like this:
Screenshot 2017-04-19 12.21.23.png
If you don't see Amazon SES Web API in your app it means you are using an ancient version of PHP, so a newer one is recommended.
 
By looking on the delivery servers tab I can see that the one that I created was an amazon ses web api one indeed, so I the bounce should be handled automatically. But if so, I should not have received any warning by amazon right?
 
Day Trade The World™ said:
But if so, I should not have received any warning by amazon right?
Click to expand...
Well, not quite...
The way it works is that the bounces go to amazon first time and then amazon sends them to your mailwizz app, so in case you have reached their bounce quota, they will now before mailwizz does and they'll notify you.
 
Im confused about bounce service. I set up gmail as a bounce server so that SES didnt have to be involved or notified. Am i incorrect or understanding how this works? If SES handles bounces automatically then why was I told in the instructions it was paramount to have a bounce server correctly configured? Is there any benefit like hiding bounce rates from SES by having a free GMAIL account take the hit? MASSIVE learning curve for a newbie and not alot of laymen level information for beginners
 
mdacom said:
Im confused about bounce service. I set up gmail as a bounce server so that SES didnt have to be involved or notified. Am i incorrect or understanding how this works? If SES handles bounces automatically then why was I told in the instructions it was paramount to have a bounce server correctly configured? Is there any benefit like hiding bounce rates from SES by having a free GMAIL account take the hit? MASSIVE learning curve for a newbie and not alot of laymen level information for beginners
Click to expand...
If you use any Deliver Server that uses web api, then you do not need to set up a bounce server within mwz, since that DS with web api will take care of the bounces.
 
I disabled the bounce server and still cant see the bounces in SES. I checked the campaign and I sent it to a valid email address (so i could manually mark it spam) and it never showed up in my in box. Also the campaign showed an internal Bounce in the metric? What is that?
 
mdacom said:
I disabled the bounce server and still cant see the bounces in SES. I checked the campaign and I sent it to a valid email address (so i could manually mark it spam) and it never showed up in my in box. Also the campaign showed an internal Bounce in the metric? What is that?
Click to expand...
If you use amazon ses with WEB API (it will take care of bounces and notify into mwz via web hook),
then no mwz bounce server needed.
If you use amazon ses as SMTP, then use a bounce server within mwz (since ses will not take care of the bounces).
 
WEB API ??? I followed the instructions to setup SES using SMTP and entered in my keys, then I got a green banner sating the server was working. Now what are we talking about? I dont remember even seeing the words ( WEB API ) when setting this up and watching the videos
 
mdacom said:
WEB API ??? I followed the instructions to setup SES using SMTP and entered in my keys, then I got a green banner sating the server was working. Now what are we talking about? I dont remember even seeing the words ( WEB API ) when setting this up and watching the videos
Click to expand...
You decide which way to go, perhaps continue the SMTP way for now, and just setup a bounce server in mwz, perhaps using the FROM address you use to send.
For a bit more background, perhaps ready all of the above in this thread, where it does mentioned WEB API and there is even a pic so you can see the difference of the two options right there within mwz.
It might be recommendable to read a bit from the 'guides to mailwizz' here, where you will find also tips how to setup amazon ses services: https://forum.mailwizz.com/threads/guides-to-mailwizz.2976/
Please feel free to come back with specifics.
 
I see it now. I didnt see it when setting up. As soon as I saw Amazon SES i stopped looking down the list.
 
So basically another Entire learning curve to set up a another server connection? Had I known or been warned there were 2 alternatives I wouldnt have gone with SMTP. What is the Pros and Cons of WEB API vs SMTP???
 
mdacom said:
So basically another Entire learning curve to set up a another server connection?
Click to expand...
It is called Bounce Server, but it really is only a mailbox just like thunderbird imap email setup, see mwz bounce server setup, very easy, you will see, especially if you read the tips from before, and the hints from the fields in the BS setup.

mdacom said:
What is the Pros and Cons of WEB API vs SMTP?
Click to expand...
With SMTP you can see all bounces (and control how they are handled, if you edit the rules file). The downside is, that it needs to work and taken care of in any case.
The advantage with web api bounce handling is, that you don't have to worry about it, since it is done automatically, but you have not control over it, i.e. the rules the provider uses are to be accepted (i.e. you have a silent business partner which some who love freedom do not like so much).
In both cases there can be the occasional break-down, but with web api you might miss a few or more hook calls and then it is over, while with smtp bounce you will get them re-delivered even after several days of failure.
 
That was mostly French to me. I have no concept of webhooks or bounce servers. Im am a newbie ( a web designer who understands Databases and graphics) Not a Mail guy)). I am literally learning new things daily and am just starting to adjust to the lingo
 
Is there an advantage to keeping bounces form the prying eyes of Amazon so it doesnt affect my sending reputation? I see people setting up POP with Gmail and other servers and diverting them. Or should I just configure the WEB API and create another server then disable the others?
 
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