Are you or your subscribers not receiving your opt-in's incentive email? Here's what to check for.
This can be due to a deliverability issue or something misconfigured in your account settings.
In this article, we'll walk you through everything you need to check to diagnose why your incentive email isn't being delivered.
1. Give it time
Our system usually sends incentive emails quickly. However, the emails can sometimes take a couple of minutes to come through.
If you just signed up to your opt-in, the system might need just a bit of extra time to process the send.
2. Is your Kit account approved?
The next thing to check for is whether your Kit account has been approved. If your account is not approved yet, you'll see this yellow bar across the top of your Kit account:
Your account won't be able to send emails until it is approved. Click the banner to submit your account for approval, and our team will be in touch as soon as possible.
NOTE: Check out this article for more info on our approvals process.
3. Is the incentive email in the spam or promotions folder?
Ask your subscriber, or check yourself if you're testing your own opt-in, whether the incentive email ended up in the spam or promotions folder.
If it has, use this comprehensive guide to troubleshoot this issue: Why are my incentive emails going to spam?
4. Is the incentive email enabled?
If your account is approved and the incentive email didn't go to spam, check that you've enabled the email for your opt-in.
Open your opt-in in the Form or Landing Page builder (depending on your opt-in's type), and then click Settings at the top right:
Next, click Incentive from the sidebar, and ensure Send incentive email is checked:
NOTE: The incentive email won't send retroactively—it has to have been enabled before a person subscribes to your opt-in.
5. Are you sending from an @customdomain email address?
If the incentive email was enabled at the time of the signup, check that you aren't using a freemail address as your sending address.
Click the Edit Email Contents button from the Incentive settings (see screenshot above). Then, check the From address displayed in the window that pops up:
This sending email should be an @customdomain email address like [email protected]. In other words, it should not be a freemail address ending in @gmail, @yahoo, @hotmail, etc. (This is true for all emails sent via Kit—not just incentive emails.)
This is because using a freemail address as your sending address can harm your deliverability.
You can add a custom domain email address in your account settings.
NOTE: After adding an @customdomain email address as your sending address, we recommend setting it as your default sending address. Then, delete any freemail addresses from your account settings so they don't get used by accident.
6. Is the incentive email in the subscriber's email history?
The next step is to check the subscriber's email history for the incentive email.
Go to the Subscribers page, and use the search bar to search for the subscriber's email address (or your own email address if you were testing your own opt-in).
Once you've found the email address, click it to view its associated subscriber profile.
Do you see the incentive email in their email history? If so, hover over the icon next to it to see if it may have bounced or failed to send.
7. Did you sign up for the same opt-in with the same email address within the last 12 hours?
Incentive emails send only once per subscriber per 12-hour period. So, if you signed up to the opt-in with the same email address more than once within a 12-hour period, you'll receive an incentive email only the first time. This is unless you delete yourself as a subscriber from your list in between tests.
☝️ PRO TIP: If you're testing your own opt-in multiple times with the same email address(es), consider using email aliases instead.
8. Does your incentive email have an unsubscribe link?
The system won't send an email if the email doesn't have an unsubscribe link. If your default email template doesn't have an unsubscribe link, that's probably what's causing your email to be held back.
Check out our other article to learn how to edit your unsubscribe link.
9. Does your incentive email have a physical address?
To comply with anti-spam legislation, every email you send through Kit—including the incentive email—needs a physical address. You have two options:
Use Kit's address: We're happy for you to use our physical address. More details on what you must agree to to use our physical address in our other article.
Use your own address: Type it manually, or add the
{{ address }}variable to your template to automatically have your email display the address saved in your account settings.
Remember: Whether you use the {{ address }} variable or type the address yourself, every email needs an address. While our email preview feature catches most required elements, it won't flag a missing address. So, double-check before sending.