@comcast.net email addresses bouncing from Shopify Mail campaigns.

[hbenik]

Last week a couple of our email campaigns failed because all addresses @comcast.net bounced back. We have DMARC and DKIM records, and the campaign passed a spam check. Is anyone else having this issues?

[Jani17]

YES  Shopify support just told ME to report it to Comcast !?!?       Then he hung up on me when I told him this is an  issue between Shop and Comcast....

[hbenik]

Shopify Plus support escalated the issue to their tech team. They confirmed it is a Comcast side issue, but they're working to resolve it (if possible). I have an actual ticket number and will add updates here. The issue resulted in our domain being blacklisted by Barracuda, so this is no joke. Just filter out any Comcast addresses from your mailings in the meantime.

[Jani17]

March 20 and this has still not been resolved, nor can I get Shopify to give me a real update or ETA.  

[hbenik]

Same. I have a ticket number and asked for a follow-up. Still waiting.

[Woolfloss]

We are having this issue too.  Shopify is saying it's Google's issue as our email we are sending from is hosted in Google Workspace.  Do you  all use Google Workspace as well?  In the meantime we are filtering out comcast emails and are hoping that will work.

[hbenik]

No, we do not use Google Workspace.  Sorry. I will be sure to update this thread if I ever hear anything back from Shopify. Thanks.

[Jani17]

We don't use Google Workspace either. Just a mailing list of imported and
manually created Customers inside Shopify. I am now sending to groups
broken out by domain: Comcast usually delivers 15 out of 200, the rest
bounce. Gmail, MSN and all the others go through without any problems at
all.

I sometimes RE-SEND to the Bounces from the Comcast group and another 15-20
will be delivered.

[Woolfloss]

Thank you both for this.  We appreciate the help.  We just sent an email without Comcast customers and it succeeded.  This makes it seem like it's a shopify issue.  We will be sure to let shopify know about this thread.  Appreciate it.

[hbenik]

I heard back from Shopify today, stating the block at comcast has been removed. I asked for further details and the response said there was no further information.  I ran a spam test on an upcoming campaign to find we've been blacklisted by Barracuda again. We have not sent a failed campaign since 3/1, so I do not know why we were relisted. 

[Jani17]

I'm talking to Comcast as we speak for the 4th time in 3 days.   Shopify says they will NOT talk to Comcast and I need to resolve this with them.  They say i need to ask Comcast to whitelist "mailer.shopify.com" and I can't seem to get Comcast support to understand or agree to this.  Meanwhile Shopify says they are not the problem.   Also I found that my email appears on the Shopify Bounce list but I am getting emails now...  So I'm not even sure that the Delivered/Bounced stats are accurate.   They also say that if an email bounces, it will not be re-sent.  I asked Shop to UN=bounce all my Comcast customers and they refused.  If I get the issue resolved with Comcast and my customers are still on Shopify bounce list, supposedly they will STILL not be sent messages.    So frustrating.

[Woolfloss]

Can I ask, how do you run a spam test on an upcoming campaign?  This is what I am concerned with so I don't want to even try to add back comcast customers for fear that the emails will fail.  Thank you so much!

[hbenik]

Sure! There are many different services, but I’ve been using mailgenius.com.

[Jani17]

Hi I have segmented my customer list by user Domain so that smaller groups of emails are being sent out and the non-Comcast customers are not affected by the "spam" issues.   It's also very easy to see that the gmail, yahoo etc are mostly all going through easily, and the Comcast users are not.  Usually 10-15 of the Comcast users are sent successfully and 200 are flagged as spam.   Then I re-send to the Spam group and 15-20 go through.  I do this over and over for each mailing.   

[Jani17]

Yesterday I sent and resent a message to bounced  Comcast addresses.   I created a Comcast only segment and sent a message.   20 were delivered and 200 were bounced.  Clicked on the Bounce list and saved THAT segment, then sent the message to this group.  About 20 were delivered and 180 were bounced.   Continued until there was only 1 bounce.  I can't see doing this ever time but it was an interesting exercise.   Have told Shopify this and they still maintain that it is a Comcast issue.    

[emstitchery]

Was this resolved?  We're having the same problem, and it looks like it's mostly comcast and yahoo addresses.

[hbenik]

It appears to be a foundational issue with how Shopify mail sends. It uses a shared IP to send mail, meaning if other senders are not following SPAM best practices, it affects the results quality for all users.

[Woolfloss]

Has everyone tried adding a DMARC record to your third-party domain?  I have been required to do this by other email marketing services that I use for other clients.  I am wondering if this might be the issue?

More info here: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/intro-to-shopify/initial-setup/setup-your-email#dmarc

[Jani17]

I looked into this - our Domain is hosted by Shopify so it is set up per their instructions.   So that isn't the issue for us anyway.

[dcs-larina]

We have DMARC setup a few months ago.  Got a LOT of comcast.net bounced emails from our mailing last night.  

Looking at the DMARC site it appears that emails passed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.  Yet here we are with lots of bounced emails.  

[Jani17]

I have just given up.   I have received zero assistance from Shopify and same from Comcast.  Lots of "open tickets" that are never resolved and don't exist when I call back to check progress.  Comcast was amused when I told them that Shopify said they had to whitelist Shopify, said they'd escalate to the security team....  the owner of the store and I are both blocked.   

I'm wondering if Hbenik and others have been given more information because they have a higher level of plan than we do?   

[hbenik]

Sorry to say that there does not seem to be any plans to resolve the issue on Shopify’s side. They actually suggested I find a different email provider, which I am actively seeking now. Haven’t made a decision just yet.

[Woolfloss]

Do you mean you are now looking for a new email app within shopify?  We are looking at Omnisend. Though we don't know yet if this will fix the issue or not.

[Jani17]

As of 5/6 we have sent two mailings where all of the Comcast emails were delivered.   Wish I knew why, but I'll enjoy it for now.  Good luck all.