You've spent all this time crafting the perfect Sequence to send to your subscribers...but now it's not sending.
Here are a few things you can check to see if things are set up correctly.
1. Are you using a custom domain email as your sending email?
Free email addresses like Gmail and Yahoo (e.g., bobdole@gmail.com) are not recommended as they often cause failed or bounced emails.
To check if you're using a custom email domain, go to the Settings tab in your Sequence and look for Send emails as on the left-hand side:
If you're sending from a free email address, here are options for getting a custom domain.
NOTE: Once you’ve added your custom domain email address for sending, feel free to reach out to our support team so they can try helping you resend any emails that might have bounced.
2. Have subscribers been added to the Sequence?
Sequences won’t send to your subscribers unless they've been added using one of the following methods:
Check if subscribers have been added to the Sequence by going to the Reports tab and checking the number next to Subscribers in the left-hand column:
If the Subscribers number is 0, this means no subscribers are active in the Sequence. You'll need to add them to the Sequence using a Visual Automation, Rule, or Bulk Action.
Once you've done this, your subscribers should start receiving your Sequence emails.
3. Are your Sequence emails published?
Make sure your Sequence emails have been published. If they're still in draft mode, they won't send.
You'll see a toggle on the left-hand side of your Sequence email that says Published. Make sure this is toggled on:
NOTE: If you're having trouble getting your Sequence's status to change, check that you’ve added a physical mailing address to your account settings.
4. When is the first Sequence email set to send?
If you've already added subscribers to your Sequence but it's not sending right away, check the settings for the first email in the Sequence.
If it's not set to send immediately, this can explain a delay:
To have the Sequence email send right away, set the Send this email setting to "0 days" or "0 hours" so that the email sends out immediately:
5. Do you have any exclusions or filters set up?
If you’ve excluded subscribers from the Sequence, those subscribers won’t receive any emails in the Sequence unless you remove the exclusion.
To check any exclusions, go to your Sequence's Settings tab:
You may have also set up filters within individual Sequence emails like this:
In this example, any subscriber who has the "Guitar Students" Tag will not receive this Sequence email.
If you do have an exclusion, remove it and save your Sequence settings. As for filters, the system will save changes to your filters immediately.
After you've removed the exclusion or filter, the Sequence should be triggered to send within a few minutes, although this can sometimes take up to an hour.
NOTE: If your email wasn't sent because of a filter or exclusion and it still hasn't sent an hour after you removed the filter or exclusion, contact our support team and tell them you removed an exclusion.
There are a number of nuanced technical reasons an email that had been filtered/excluded might not send, and our support team will be able to identify the issue for you.
6. Is your Sequence set to send only on certain days or no days at all?
Check to see if your Sequence is set to send on only certain days of the week.
There are two places this can be set up:
In the Sequence's Settings tab:
In an individual email’s settings:
For example, if your Sequence settings have Thursday unchecked, your Sequence emails won't send on Thursdays.
7. Have your subscribers completed the Sequence within a Visual Automation?
Is your Sequence part of a Visual Automation?
If so, any subscribers who have received all of the published emails in the Sequence will be marked as "Completed" and move on through the funnel. This means they won’t get any new emails you add to the Sequence.
You can see if any subscribers are marked as "Completed" by checking the Sequence report:
If your Sequence subscribers are already marked as "Completed," reach out to our support team, and we can reactivate the subscribers for you.
NOTE: To keep subscribers added to a Sequence via a Visual Automation in the Sequence even after they've received all its emails, set up the Sequence to be evergreen.
Here you go:
8. Did you recently edit an active sequence?
If your sequence was sending fine and then stopped — or subscribers aren't receiving emails you expected — a mid-sequence edit is often the cause.
Subscribers stuck after a deleted or reordered email
Deleting an email while subscribers are queued for it can cause them to stop progressing. Fix: remove those subscribers and re-add them. They'll skip emails already received and resume from the next unread one.
Reordering emails while subscribers are active can cause them to skip emails or get stuck. The most reliable fix is to create a new sequence with the correct order and move subscribers there.
New emails not being received by existing subscribers
Check where you added the new email. Adding to the beginning or middle can cause existing subscribers to skip it, the end is always the safest spot.
If you added it to the end and it's still not going out, check Settings > Sequence Behavior. If "Should subscribers added via Visual Automations stay in the sequence?" is set to No, subscribers marked "Completed" won't receive new emails. Subscribers added via Automation Rules or Bulk Actions stay active automatically regardless of this setting.
Emails stopped sending after changing send days
Check the Sequence Schedule in the Settings tab and the send day settings for individual emails. If all days are unchecked in either place, sending is paused. Re-enable your preferred days and sending should resume within the hour.
Subscribers skipped after an exclusion change
A new exclusion skips all matching subscribers for future emails, even mid-sequence — it doesn't remove them or mark them as completed. Removing the exclusion resumes sending, usually within a few minutes.