Emails from your Admin Modules and website pages will always be sent out, but that does not mean they will be received by the person you are sending them to. While we can’t track down why someone is not receiving your emails, here are a the most common reasons we are seeing.

NOTE: If you are hearing from multiple people that your email is not being received, there is probably a good reason you should investigate. Many times, it will be simply that your email looks like spam to the receiving email, especially Yahoo! HotMail and AOL. Simplify your email and ramp down the urgent words, like URGENT, FREE, LAST CHANCE, HURRY… stuff like that, especially in the subject line. Also, include as few links as possible. Shorter emails are better emails.

1. Email is not correct.
   This is BY FAR the most common reason we see. The person who submitted the team application or question from the web form did not type in the correct email address.
2. Email is full.
   More and more email services are pulling back on the capacity of the email services, especially the free services. Many of them are simply not notifying their uses except by emailing them, which they are not getting if their email boxes are full.
3. Replying to a DO_NOT_REPLY outgoing email.
   When people respond to an email address clearly marked as DO NOT REPLY, you will not get their reply. If we happen to catch it and it is critical to your event (like a team withdrawing) we may forward it along as a Message Center email, but you should not reply on that to happen. You may wish to remind teams that all of the outgoing email is DO_NOT_REPLY and include your email address if you want. Keep in mind that any email sent to your personal email is not logged into the Message Center.
4. MTA_BLOCKED
   This is mostly when government or corporate organizations have rules against receiving emails from specific organizations like … well, soccer tournaments. Teams and referees should always be discouraged against using their employer’s email to conduct soccer business, especially if that employer is a government entity. There may be exceptions for schools on High School or college events, but it is generally not recommended using an edu, gov or mil domain as the IT department may have blanket rules (or laws in some cases) to apply email blocks.
5. No SPF, DKIM and DMARC records on your own email domain.
   If you are using your own outgoing email address and you do not have SPF, DKIM or DMARC properly configured to include our server IP address, you will likely see a higher that normal bounce rate. You should consult with your email provider.
6. Copy/Paste from Word, Google Sheets, etc.
   If your outgoing message sent through the Team Applications, Marketing or Referee Modules is not being received, make sure you did not simply copy/paste from a word processor program without sanitizing it first to make sure it does not contain any illegal characters, including emoji. Many email programs are getting more and more finicky about just accepting ASCII characters from web-based applications that are not theirs. When in doubt, compose your message directly in the broadcast screen.

There are probably some more idiosyncratic reasons why some email is not being received, but these are by far the top causes.