Sends
Sends is the number of messages that SES accepted and attempted to deliver. The number of sends may not match the number of deliveries because messages could still bounce or be rejected by the receiving email server.
A change in the number of sends may not be an issue for your application. For instance, many companies will send significantly more email around holidays or other promotions. If the anomaly in number of sends does not correspond with such an event, you should investigate the application sending emails. If the number of sends is lower than expected, make sure your application still has permission to SES and is correctly triggering the code to send emails for things like registrations and forgot password emails. If the number of sends is unusually high, you may want to check application logs to see if the same email is being sent to SQS multiple times. A high number of sends can put you at risk for reaching the SES per second and daily quotas.
Rejects refers to the number of messages that SES rejects because it contains a virus or malicious content. SES may accept the message initially but can reject it before delivering to the recipient’s email server. A rejected message still counts towards the daily sending quota. A high number of rejects is unusual and should be investigated. Make sure any attachments on your messages do not contain viruses.
A bounce is a message that is permanently rejected by the recipient’s email server. Blue Matador monitors your SES bounce rate and compares it to the acceptable values. AWS expects your bounce rate to be less than 5%, and your account risks probation or suspension if the rate exceeds 10%.
To keep your bounce rate low, ensure that your email list is properly curated. One way to accomplish this is to require the recipient to verify their email address before they can receive future emails from your application. This reduces the chance that an email is sent to a non-existent email address.
You can also configure SES to send bounce notifications to an SNS topic where you can then decide if the recipient should be removed from the list. This ensures that you will not receive multiple bounces from the same recipient.
If your account has already been put on probation or suspended, you will have to contact AWS to resolve the issue with your bounce rate.
A complaint is an email that is marked by the recipient as spam. AWS expects your complaint rate to remain below 0.1% and will put your account in probation or suspend it if the rate exceeds 0.5%. Complaints are taken very seriously and any increase in complaint rate should be addressed immediately.
To keep your complaint rate low, make sure that users only receive content relevant to them, and never send unsolicited emails. You can configure SES to send complaint notifications to an SNS topic where you can then remove the recipient from your list.
If your account has already been put on probation or suspended, you will have to contact AWS to resolve the issue with your complaint rate.
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