What is the global blocklist and how do you remove an address from it?
In the history of a subscriber or in your campaign results, you may see that an email address has been cleaned with the reason hardbounce, followed by the mention global block list. Laposta places email addresses on this list when they are known not to exist, so that they are skipped during the next delivery. This applies not only to your own account, but across the entire platform.
How an address gets on the list
If you send a newsletter to an email address that no longer exists, the receiving mail server returns it. This is called a hard bounce. The address is then removed from your active subscribers and placed under the ‘cleaned’ tab of that list.
With that first hard bounce, the address is placed directly on the global block list. You do not need to do or configure anything for this yourself.
Why the list applies to the entire platform
Hard bounces are normal and not a problem in themselves. However, they do become a problem if the same address is emailed again afterwards: receiving mail servers interpret this as careless list management, which harms the sending reputation for everyone sending through Laposta.
Within your own account, this does not happen as long as you send to the same list, because the address has already been cleaned there. It can, however, happen via another list that contains the same address. And because Laposta sends on behalf of many different customers, an address may also have already been cleaned in a campaign from another account. That is why the list applies to the entire platform rather than per account.
What this means for your delivery
If an address is on the block list, Laposta immediately cleans it during the next delivery without actually sending your newsletter. In your list and in the results, this counts as a regular bounce, and the address moves to the ‘cleaned’ tab just like normal.
Would you like to check whether the block list was the cause? In your list, click on the email address to view the history of that subscriber. The reason is stated next to the cleaning entry.
What you can do about it
If it is true that the address no longer exists, there is no point in emailing it again: a new attempt will simply result in another hard bounce. If you still want to reach this subscriber, you can only do so with a new, working email address. You can read how to enter this for a cleaned subscriber under the message ‘This address is already in the list’. If you are certain that the existing address is working properly, you can remove it from the list yourself.
The block list is different from unsubscribing. An unsubscribed subscriber has opted out of your list, whereas an address on the block list can no longer be reached for technical reasons. You can see which status is located where in the overview of active, unsubscribed and cleaned subscribers.
If a newsletter does not arrive and no bounce is recorded, the block list is not involved. In that case, first go through the checkpoints for a newsletter that does not arrive, or read why a newsletter ends up in the spam folder.
Removing an address from the list
Is the address listed as a cleaned subscriber in one of your lists and are you certain that it is working properly, for instance because regular emails do arrive there? Go to Subscribers → your list → ‘Browse’ → ‘cleaned’ tab → ‘Details’ and click on ‘Reactivate’. In the window that opens, you will see that the address is on the global block list. If you confirm this, the subscriber becomes active again and Laposta removes the address from the block list. The steps and conditions can be found under reactivating cleaned subscribers.
Deleting the address and adding it to your list again will not help: during the next delivery, it will immediately be cleaned again without your newsletter being sent. There is also no time period after which an address is automatically removed from the block list.
Reactivating is only possible for email addresses in your own lists, which means you cannot check whether arbitrary addresses are on the block list. Moreover, this can only be done once across all Laposta users combined. If the address bounces again afterwards, it will usually be placed back on the list and no one will be able to remove it themselves anymore. If you are still certain that the address works, please send an email to helpdesk@laposta.nl.
If an address has been cleaned because the recipient marked your newsletter as spam, it is not on the global block list and you cannot reactivate it with the same address. You can only reach this subscriber again using a new email address.