Understanding delivery status
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Learn the difference between sent, delivered and bounced, and how delivery webhooks from SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark and Brevo fill in the log.
An email can leave your site and still never reach the inbox. This article explains the two kinds of status CRM-NG SMTP keeps for each logged email, and how to get real delivery results from your mail service. It is for anyone who needs proof that a message arrived, or wants to spot bounces.
Two different statuses
Every log entry has a Status and a Delivery status. They answer different questions.
| Status | Delivery status | |
|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | Did my mail service accept the email? | What happened after that? |
| Set by | CRM-NG SMTP, at the moment of sending | Your mail service, later, through a webhook |
| Where you see it | The log list and the entry | The entry's detail view only |
| Values | Pending, Sent, Sent-backup, Failed, Blocked | Not reported, processed, delivered, deferred, bounced, dropped, complained |
Sent only means the hand-off worked. Think of it as dropping a letter in the postbox. The receiving server can still reject the message minutes later, delay it, or put it in spam. Your mail service sees those results. CRM-NG SMTP only learns about them if the service tells it.
Delivery status values
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not reported | No event has arrived for this email. This is normal when no webhook is set up. |
processed |
The mail service queued the message for delivery. |
delivered |
The receiving server accepted the message. |
deferred |
The receiving server asked to try again later. The service will keep trying for a while. |
bounced |
The receiving server rejected the message, usually because the address does not exist. |
dropped |
The mail service refused to send it, often because the address is on its suppression list. |
complained |
The recipient marked the message as spam. |
Each new event replaces the previous value, so the field shows the latest news.
Delivered is not "in the inbox"
delivered means the recipient's server accepted the message. Its own filters may still put it in the spam folder. For inbox placement, see Emails landing in spam.
Getting delivery events
Delivery status is filled in by delivery webhooks: your mail service calls a special address on your site each time something happens to a message. CRM-NG SMTP understands the event formats of:
- SendGrid
- Mailgun
- Postmark
- Brevo
- Any other service or script that can send a small generic JSON message
You set this up once on the Alerts tab and in your mail service's dashboard. The full steps are in Delivery and bounce webhooks.
Not every mailer can send webhooks this way. If you use a mailbox provider such as Google, Microsoft 365 or Zoho Mail, there is no delivery feed, and Delivery status stays Not reported. Bounces then arrive as normal emails in the sending mailbox.
How events are matched to log entries
CRM-NG SMTP matches an event to a log entry by the recipient's address. It picks the most recent logged email whose To list contains that address. This works well for most sites. Keep in mind:
- If you send several emails to the same person close together, a late event may update the newest of them rather than the one it belongs to.
- CC and BCC recipients are not matched.
- Events for addresses that were never logged are ignored.
When there is no webhook
You can still learn a lot without one:
- A Failed status always means the mail service refused the message. Open the entry and read the Error.
- Check the mail service's own activity or logs page. It shows bounces and drops for every message.
- Turn on Return Path on the General tab where your mailer supports it, so bounce messages go back to your From address instead of being lost.