The Message Delivery Failed trigger lets you set up an Automation Workflow that runs automatically when a message fails to reach a contact's inbox. Use it to resend a message via a different sequence, add a tag for follow-up, or keep your list clean by acting on bounce data.
Before You Begin
Available on: All Omnisend plans.
Applies to: Email, SMS, and Push Notification channels (with channel-specific filter options).
Trigger fires for: Both Campaign and Automation Workflow messages.
What is Message Delivery Failure?
Message delivery failure occurs when a sent message cannot reach the recipient. Failures are classified as soft bounces or hard bounces.
Hard bounces indicate an invalid email address. When a hard bounce occurs, Omnisend automatically unsubscribes the contact.
Important: Because a hard bounce triggers an automatic unsubscribe, a contact who hard-bounced cannot receive the resend automation – they are no longer subscribed. Use the Message Delivery Failed trigger for hard bounces to tag or segment the contact, not to resend a message. Use the Segmentation feature to identify and review hard-bounced contacts separately.
Soft bounces occur for temporary reasons: full inboxes, IP or sender domain issues, or temporary server problems. Many soft bounces resolve within 1–2 days, but full or inactive mailboxes can signal poor list quality. In some cases, old abandoned mailboxes convert into spam traps. Omnisend handles repeated soft bounce failures with removal after multiple unsuccessful delivery attempts. To automatically follow up on soft bounce failures, set up an automation using the Message Delivery Failed trigger.
Automation Setup
Go to Automation → Create workflow → Create from Scratch.
Select Message Delivery Failed from the trigger dropdown.
Configure your trigger filters (see Trigger Filters below) to specify which channel, bounce type, or message the automation should respond to.
Add your workflow steps – for example, an email step, an SMS step, or an Add Tag action.
Message Delivery Failed Trigger
The Message Delivery Failed trigger is useful when you want to:
Resend a message via a new workflow step after a soft bounce resolves.
Add a tag to contacts whose message failed, so you can identify and manage them later.
Ensure a contact receives the discount or the offer promised in the signup form if the welcome email soft-bounces.
Keep in mind that the right action depends on the reason for the failure. For hard bounces, use the trigger to tag or segment the contact – not to resend, as the contact is automatically unsubscribed.
Note: There is no event history for deleted contacts. If a contact is deleted before the trigger fires, the event will not appear in the Trigger Preview Tool.
Trigger Filters
Use trigger filters to define exactly which delivery failures should activate this automation.
Filter | Description |
Bounce Type | This field indicates the type of bounce that occurred when the system attempted to deliver an email message. There are two types of bounces: soft and hard bounces.
Email channel:
SMS channel:
Push channel:
|
Message Channel | Select one of the possible channels:
|
Delivery Failure Reason | If a message cannot be delivered, this field will briefly describe the reason for the failure. Reasons will be synced from your store's delivery failures. |
Email Domain | Everything that goes after the @ symbol. Note: works only for the Email channel messages. |
Message Title | For the Email and Push Notification channels, you can add the title of the campaign message or the automation message. |
Message ID | Message ID is different depending on which message type and channel it is. You can check IDs in reports of Campaigns and Automations. |
Phone number, country code | Two-letter country codes according to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 standard. Note: it works only for SMS channel messages. |
Marketing Activity ID |
|
Marketing Activity Name | The marketing activity name varies depending on the message type.
|
Marketing Activity Type | It depends on the message type. It can be either:
|
Message Format | Message type:
Note: works only for the SMS channel. |
Send Cost | The SMS credits that were used for sending your message.
Note: This only works for the SMS channel. |
Segmentation
You can use the Message Delivery Failed event in Segmentation to identify contacts whose messages failed. In the segment builder, select Message delivery failed and add any of the same conditions available as trigger filters above.
This lets you build a segment of contacts with persistent delivery issues – useful for list cleaning or targeted re-engagement.
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