My newsletter blast didn't send — what happened?

You hit Send on a newsletter blast, saw the confirmation spinner, and then... nothing arrived in your test inbox. Or partial sends — some subscribers got it, some didn't. Newsletter delivery failures are stress-inducing because they're time-sensitive. Here's how to diagnose what went wrong and how to recover.

Check the send status in admin

Go to Admin → Newsletter → Campaigns and find the blast. Its status will be one of: Draft, Scheduled, Queued (not started yet), Sending (in progress), Sent (delivered), or Failed (couldn't send). For a Failed campaign, open it to see the details.

Sending limits and batching

VeloCMS sends newsletters through its own email service, in batches that stay within the provider's sending limits. If your subscriber list is large, the full blast can take several minutes to complete. This is normal — it's not a failure, it's queuing. The send status will show 'Sending' until all batches complete.

You don't need to buy or upgrade anything with an email provider — sending is handled by VeloCMS. If a blast stays in Sending for more than an hour, contact support with the campaign name and the time you sent it.

Domain verification status

If you send from a custom sender domain (Business and Agency plans), it must be verified — SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records added and validated — before newsletters can go out from it. On the VeloCMS platform address there is nothing to verify.

Go to Admin → Newsletter → Sender Domain.
Your domain should show a green 'Verified' status. If it shows 'Pending DNS' or 'Failed', the DNS records haven't propagated yet or there's a configuration error.
Click Check DNS records to see which specific records (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) are failing.
After fixing DNS records, click Refresh Status — DNS changes usually take 5–30 minutes to propagate.
Once verified, open the failed blast under Admin → Newsletter → Campaigns and send it again.

Subscriber list validation

VeloCMS validates subscriber email addresses before sending. Addresses that previously bounced hard (permanent delivery failures) are automatically suppressed — VeloCMS keeps a suppression list and respects it. If you notice a specific subscriber not receiving newsletters, check Admin → Members → find the member → check their email address for typos and their status (Active vs. Unsubscribed vs. Bounced).

Never try to re-send to addresses on the suppression list. Suppressed addresses bounced or marked your email as spam — continuing to send to them will hurt your domain's sender reputation and can result in your sending being suspended.

Member-webhook and auto-send on publish

VeloCMS can send a newsletter to subscribers when you publish a new post — enable the 'Send to subscribers' option in the post editor before you hit Publish (there is no global auto-send toggle under Settings; standalone automations such as welcome emails are managed at Admin → Newsletter → Automations). This uses an internal member-webhook event. If post-publish sends aren't going out, confirm the member-webhook endpoint is registered correctly — your site's member-webhook URL is shown in Admin → Settings → Membership.

Per-campaign results — the full picture

For a detailed view of what happened to a blast, open the campaign under Admin → Newsletter → Campaigns. The list shows open rate, click rate, unsubscribes, and bounce count, and the campaign row gives you a per-link click breakdown. If a subscriber says they didn't receive the email, check their status under Admin → Members first. If it's Active rather than Bounced or Unsubscribed, the issue is on their mail server — encourage them to check spam and add your sending address to their contacts.