Overview

To maintain strong deliverability and remain compliant with major mailbox providers, Thyrv enforces an 18-month (541+ days) email engagement policy affective January 30, 2026. This policy ensures that messages sent through our network follow industry best practices and reduces the likelihood of spam complaints, blocks, and reputation damage.

Contacts who have not engaged with your marketing emails for more than 18 months pose a significant deliverability risk. Continuing to send to these contacts can negatively impact inbox placement for your app and for the broader sending environment.

What Counts as “Engagement”?

Engagement, for the purpose of this policy, includes:

• Opening an email sent from our email network
• Clicking a link in an email sent from our email network

Important:
Form submissions, website visits, purchases, and CRM activity do not count as email engagement.

How the Engagement Policy Works

Before this policy was enforced, the system allowed emails to be sent to long-term unengaged contacts, which created substantial deliverability risk for both individual senders and the overall email network.

Apps must now comply with the 18-month engagement requirements. When you attempt to send a marketing email to a contact who has not engaged within 18+ months:

• The mail server (MTA) will stop sending for that specific email address.
  • The email is hard bounced with the following message:
    550 5.7.1 [Internal] Delivery not authorized, message refused due to low engagement policy
• The email address status is set to Unengaged NonMarketable.
  • Future marketing email attempts to this address will be blocked.

This ensures consistent compliance and improved overall deliverability.

Exception: Transactional Emails

Transactional, system-generated messages such as confirmation of emails, receipts, and password resets are not subject to the 18-month engagement limit. These messages continue to be sent regardless of engagement status.

*Note: These emails are still subject to provider or 3^rd party email monitoring policies which means they could still be denied delivery acceptance by the receiving servers and bounced back to us.

Why This Policy Exists

Mailbox providers (e.g., Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) rely heavily on engagement signals to determine inbox placement. Sending to long-term unengaged contacts can:

• Increase spam complaints
• Lower sender reputation
• Trigger filtering or bulk-folder placement
• Lead to temporary or long-term domain or IP blocks

The 18-month window aligns with industry best practices and helps protect your deliverability.

How to Re-Engage Unengaged Contacts

Although marketing emails cannot be sent to contacts beyond the 18-month threshold, you can re-establish consent or encourage interaction through previously sent email from our network:

• Sending them a one-time Confirmation email
• Encourage them to engage with emails previously sent to them

Once a contact confirms their email or opens/clicks again, they re-enter the active, engaged segment.

Best Practices for Maintaining Engagement

To avoid contacts aging out of the 18-month window:

• Review the Engagement Essentials help article
• Regularly clean your lists
• Use a sunset policy around 3-9 months of inactivity depending on mail volume
• Send on predictable and consistent schedules as defined at time of opt-in
• Deliver valuable, relevant content that they are expecting
• Run periodic re-engagement campaigns
• Remove chronically inactive addresses

Maintaining strong engagement directly improves inbox placement and reduces risk.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if the contact is still a customer?

Customer status does not override engagement requirements. The policy is based solely on email interaction, not account or purchase history.

Does a link click in a plain-text email count as engagement?

Yes, for any email sent from our network, opening or clicking counts as engagement.

Can I request an exemption to the 18-month rule?

No. Due to the impact on global deliverability, no exemptions are available.

Can I request a bulk re-opt-in for email addresses affected by this policy?

No. We do not process opt-in reversals or bulk reinstatement requests for contacts blocked under this policy. You may, however, send a one-time confirmation email to each affected address to allow the contact to re-engage.

What if I use WeDeliver to send my mail?

WeDeliver email addresses remain fully subject to this policy. Please ensure that any mail sent from your app is generating consistent recipient engagement to avoid enforcement actions.