Monitor Email Permanent Failure Rate in Salesforce

Please refer to the article on how to Calculate PFR before proceeding with the steps below.

Requesting a Limit Increase

If you've reviewed all relevant documentation and still need assistance with a limit increase request, please have a System Administrator create a limit increase request with Support.

Who Is Responsible

A System Administrator will need to take responsibility for the export of known bad addresses within the organization's Setup. Depending on the solution selected, this individual may not be the same person designated to take action to correct these addresses and/or records.

What Actions Need to Be Taken

It is essential that bad addresses collected in the organization's email logs are addressed on a consistent basis. The manner in which these bad addresses are handled can vary and will be solely determined by the organization's leaders and/or change management teams.

Organizations have shown great success when taking one or more of the approaches outlined below:

Approach 1 — Append ".invalid" to the Email Address

Append ".invalid" to the end of the email address on any Contact, Lead, or other record in which it is stored. The Salesforce email system discards any outbound email addressed in this manner, and any mailing sent will not impact the organization's failure rate.

Approach 2 — Delete the Email Address From the Record

Delete the email address on any Contact, Lead, or other record in which it is stored. These can be confirmed through reports, list views, and API queries. Manual, Import Wizard, or API-based updates can then be utilized to remove the offending addresses.

Approach 3 — Delete the Record Entirely

Delete the Contact, Lead, or other record associated with the bad email address. These records can be confirmed as described above. Deletion can occur using the organization's Mass Delete functionality or API-based deletion methods.

Approach 4 — Archive the Record

Archive the Contact, Lead, or other record. This includes exporting and then deleting the records. The exported details can be stored locally outside of Salesforce for future reference. The export can occur via reports, API-based export functionality, or the organization's Data Export functionality.

Approach 5 — Implement Bounce Management

Implement the Bounce Management functionality within the organization. This allows Salesforce to automatically handle email bounces and flag known bad addresses going forward.

Approach 6 — Implement a Custom Checkbox

Implement a custom checkbox to indicate that a Contact, Lead, or other record has a known bad address. This is not a foolproof solution, as there are many elements that would be required for it to work effectively. However, if the majority of email is originating via API integrations, this approach may be worthwhile if the integrations can filter these records from use through this checkbox.

Where to Find Email Logs

Email Logs can be located by a System Administrator within the organization's Setup. See this article for more details on how to request and analyze email logs.

When to Perform These Steps

We recommend that the established monitoring and cleanup steps occur as frequently as once every 15 days to ensure the organization's PFR remains below the required 1% threshold.