NPAI stands for “Does Not Live at the Address Indicated”. It’s a bit like the principle for postal mail. When an email address no longer exists, you are informed by the recipient’s server. An NPAI is very often materialized by an email entitled “failure notice” or “Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender”, although there are many different formats.

What is the benefit of cleaning up your NPAI?

Cleaning up NPAI is of paramount importance! Regularly cleaning up your NPAI, meaning removing non-existent addresses from your files, has very beneficial effects on your campaigns:

1. You qualify your file and thus avoid unnecessarily burdening your mailings by targeting only existing addresses: you reduce the duration of your mailings and mechanically increase the open rate of your campaigns.
2. You respect mail servers by avoiding cluttering them with unnecessary messages.
3. You are less likely to be classified as spam: it should be known that the higher the NPAI rate, the higher the risk of blacklisting.
4. You get rid of “trap addresses” contained in your file: these are obsolete addresses recycled by email service providers to penalize senders who neglect cleaning up NPAI. Identifying just one trap address can lead to the outright blacklisting of the sending server and/or sender domain.
5. You avoid spending email credits on emails that will not be delivered.

How are NPAI managed on the OxiMailing platform?

The routing platform automatically manages NPAI. When they are received, they are analyzed and a different treatment is applied depending on the type of NPAI:

• Permanent NPAI (“Hard bounce”): the recipient’s address is automatically added to your NPAI list because it does not exist or no longer exists. Retrying later will not change anything; this address becomes useless.

• Temporary NPAI (“Soft Bounce”): this type of NPAI is received when the recipient’s mailbox is temporarily unavailable (e.g., if the mailbox is full). The address is marked as having generated a temporary NPAI, but it is not directly added to your NPAI list. If after a certain number of sends (variable depending on frequency) we continue to receive temporary NPAIs for the address in question, it will be automatically transferred to your NPAI list.

Finally, be aware that there are many other types of NPAI, and that for each of them, thousands of versions exist. We daily ensure a detailed analysis to adapt our treatments to these returns.

Where can I find my NPAI list in OxiMailing?

The list is accessible in the “Account” menu and then “NPAI List”. Note that any address appearing in this list will be blocked from sending (just like the blacklist). You can search/add addresses to the list using the context menu. Deleting NPAI addresses is also possible but should only be used in exceptional cases.