Why some emails do not reach a resident's inbox
How email delivery works, why messages get filtered, what URBI controls, our 99.23% delivery rate versus industry benchmarks, the Shaw situation, and why the app guarantees delivery.
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This article explains how email delivery works, why a message sometimes does not land in someone's inbox, and what URBI can and cannot control once an email leaves our system.
How an email actually travels
When URBI sends an email, it does not go straight into the resident's inbox. It travels in steps:
Our email server sends the message out.
The resident's email provider (Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, Shaw, and so on) receives it.
That provider runs its own checks and decides where the message goes.
The key thing to understand: once the resident's provider accepts the email, control passes entirely to them. We get a delivery status confirming they received it, and at that point we no longer decide what happens next. Whether it lands in the inbox, the junk or spam folder, a promotions tab, or is held back is up to the resident's provider and the settings on their account.
Why the same email reaches some people and not others
Every email provider filters differently. A message that lands cleanly in a Gmail inbox might be sent to junk by Outlook, or held by a stricter provider. Common reasons an email gets filtered or hidden:
The provider's spam filter flags it based on its own scoring rules.
The resident has a rule or filter on their account that moves or blocks certain senders.
The message lands in a secondary tab (like Promotions) instead of the main inbox.
The resident's mailbox is full.
The address has a typo or no longer exists.
The provider is temporarily deferring or throttling new senders.
None of these are something we control from our side. They live with the resident's provider or their personal account settings.
How we prove our emails are legitimate
To give providers every reason to trust us, our email is fully credentialed. We have the proper sender authentication in place, the records that major brands like Gmail, Outlook, Hotmail, and Yahoo check for, so they can confirm our messages genuinely come from URBI. This tells the providers our emails are not spoofed and not spam. Strong credentialing is a big reason our delivery rate stays high.
What we see when an email does not go through
When a message fails, the receiving server usually sends back a reason. We read that reason directly. Examples include:
No such recipient (the address does not exist)
Mailbox full
Blocked by the provider
Message refused or deferred
This response tells us whether the problem is on our side or on the resident's side, which is exactly what we need to fix it or explain it.
The Shaw situation
Shaw had been manually blocking our emails for no clear reason. This was a block on Shaw's end, not a problem with our sending. We worked with Shaw and they have since unblocked us, so Shaw addresses should now be receiving our emails normally.
Our current delivery performance
In a single month we sent over 22,000 emails with a 99.23% deliverability rate. To put that in perspective, the global average inbox placement rate sits around 83 to 85%, a "good" rate in the industry is considered 95% or higher, and even the strongest senders usually land between 97 and 99%. At 99.23%, we are at the very top of that range. The small remainder that does not deliver almost always traces back to one of the recipient-side reasons listed above, and the server response usually tells us which one.
This happens to everyone, not just us
It is worth knowing that this is not unique to URBI. The same filtering and suppression happens to the resident's own personal email every single day. Messages they expect get sent to junk, held back, or quietly dropped. They just do not realize it, because a normal person is not tracking the delivery status of every message they send. We are. Because we track all of our email metrics, we can see exactly what got through and what did not, which is more visibility than most people ever have over their own inbox.
Why the app is the most reliable channel
This is the main reason the URBI app exists. App push notifications are never filtered, never sent to junk, and never held back by a third party provider. The app guarantees the information reaches the resident every time. We understand that some residents, especially in the older generation, are hesitant about apps and new technology. That hesitation is fair. But outside of the app and email (with all of email's built in flaws), there is nothing any system can do to push deliverability higher. The app is the one channel that removes the guesswork entirely.
Want to make sure our emails reach you? Update your email settings
If you would like our emails to always land in your inbox, you can update your email settings to mark URBI as a safe sender. We have written a simple, step by step guide for each major email provider. Pick the one that matches your email address:
Outlook, Hotmail, or Live (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com)
Work or corporate email (a company address, with a note you can send your IT team)
What to do when a resident says they did not get an email
Send us the specific email address or addresses involved. We will look each one up, check the server response, and tell you exactly what happened, for example whether it bounced, was blocked, or was delivered but filtered. From there we can tell you whether it is something on our side to fix or something on the resident's end to adjust.