Handling AWS SES Suspensions

If AWS has paused or suspended your Amazon SES account, your campaigns will stop sending and the SES console will show a banner explaining the status. Do not panic - most suspensions are reversible if you respond quickly and correctly.

What an SES suspension looks like

There are two states to know about:

You will get an email at the address on your AWS account when either happens. The SES console's Reputation dashboard shows the same status.

Step 1: Stop sending immediately

Even if you are only "under review" and could technically keep sending, stop. Each additional send while the rolling rates are high digs the hole deeper. Pause any scheduled campaigns and any automations in Mailblast.

Step 2: Figure out what triggered it

The SES dashboard tells you whether bounces, complaints, or both pushed you over. Then check your recent campaigns to find the source:

• Look for the outlier campaign. Sort your campaign reports by bounce rate or complaint rate. The campaign that triggered the suspension is usually obvious.
• Did you import a new list recently? Imported lists are the most common cause.
• Did you change segments? Sending to a long-dormant segment for the first time often spikes complaints.
• Did you change your from address or sender name? Subscribers who do not recognise you mark as spam.

If you cannot identify a specific cause, the issue is usually general list decay - your subscribers are old enough that engagement is dropping across the board.

Step 3: Fix the underlying problem

You need to be able to demonstrate this in the appeal. The fix depends on the cause:

• Imported a bad list: remove the imported segment entirely
• High complaints: make the unsubscribe link more visible, review your from name/address, segment out inactive subscribers
• High bounces: re-verify your sending domain, remove anyone who has soft-bounced in recent sends, never import old lists
• Spam trap hits: this almost always means a purchased list - remove it and confirm you only send to opt-in subscribers going forward

Step 4: File the appeal

In the SES console, the suspension banner has a "Submit appeal" link that opens a support request. AWS asks for:

• What you think caused the high rates
• What you have done to fix it
• What you will do differently going forward

Be specific and honest. Vague appeals ("we will be more careful") get rejected; concrete ones ("we removed the 12,000 imported addresses, we are now only sending to subscribers from our website signup form, we added re-engagement campaigns to clear out anyone who has not opened in 6 months") get approved.

A useful template:

Our complaint rate spiked on [date] because we imported a list of [N] addresses from [source] that we believed had opted in but had not. We have removed all [N] of those addresses from our account. Going forward we will only send to subscribers who opt in through the signup form on our website, and we have enabled double opt-in to confirm intent. We have also added a clearer unsubscribe link and a "you signed up at acme.com" reminder to every campaign footer.

Step 5: Wait

AWS does not publish a specific SLA for suspension appeals - response times vary based on volume and how clear-cut the case is, but typically run from a day or two up to a week. If approved, your account returns to normal sending immediately. If denied, the response will tell you what was missing - tighten the appeal and resubmit.

While you wait, you can keep using Mailblast for everything except sending: build lists, design campaigns, set up automations, edit templates. As soon as AWS lifts the suspension, you can run them.

After you are reinstated

Do not pick up where you left off. Restart with only your most engaged subscribers - people who opened or clicked something in the last 30 days - and ramp volume back up over a few weeks. This rebuilds your domain reputation faster than going straight back to full-list sends.

And if the suspension was caused by an imported list, you now have hard evidence: do not do it again. See Why you should not send to purchased lists.