Asking for a delivery notice is not receiving one

Answer Asking for a delivery status notification is not the same as receiving one, and receiving one is not a person reading the solo ad. RFC 3461 defines the SMTP extension that carries the request. The notice, if a later hop sends it, talks about the transfer. It does not talk about a reader.

The note that started this: RFC 3461, SMTP Service Extension for Delivery Status Notifications, RFC 3461.

Earlier this month the architecture note separated a server's acceptance from a person at a mail client. Today's document is the small lever on that pipe: a sender can ask to be told what happened. Sellers sometimes describe the ask as if it were the answer. The specification is careful. The request is optional. The notice is someone else's decision to reply.

RFC 3461 is the SMTP service extension for delivery status notifications. A client that supports it can add a request to the transaction, naming the conditions it wants to hear about and the address that should receive the notice. The server that accepts the message may agree. A later system may still not bother. Support is advertised. It is not a universal promise that every mailbox on earth will write you a receipt. When a notice does come back, its body follows a format defined in a different specification. Do not mix the request with the format, and do not mix either one with an open pixel.

What does RFC 3461 let a sender do?

It defines an SMTP extension so the sender can request a delivery status notification. The request travels with the message. It does not mean a notice came back.

The practical test is in the seller's export. Did they turn the request on, or did notices arrive? A setting labeled request receipts is the first. A file of returned messages is the second. A solo ad proof that says DSN enabled is the first, dressed up as the second. Ask to see one returned notice from this drop, with the original recipient and the status. If the folder is empty, the feature was a wish.

There is a second trap. A notice of failure is useful, and it is bad news. A seller who only forwards the success lines is editing the pipe. Failures are the point of asking. They tell you which addresses were refused. Those addresses should come out of the delivered story and out of the next file. If you buy solo ads, the failure notices are the part of the proof worth reading. The success notices still do not mean a person saw the offer.

• A request and a returned notice are counted separately.
• Failures are included, not trimmed.
• The notice is labeled as a transfer event.
• Nobody calls it an open, a click, or a sale.

Is a delivery status notification proof the solo ad was read?

No. A notification, when one actually arrives, is about the transfer. It is not an inbox placement, and it is not a person opening the mail. The format of those notices is a different document from the request.

A success notice can mean a mailbox store accepted the message. The store can file it in junk after it accepts it. The person can delete it unread. The privacy proxy can prefetch it. None of those later events is what RFC 3461 requested. The August 10 note already drew the stages. This note adds a warning label to the receipt. The receipt is evidence of a hop, when the receipt exists. The hop is not the reader.

If you sell the send, you may use notices to clean the file. You may not sell the count of requests as a count of readers. The buyer who pays per read has not bought a DSN. The buyer who pays per accepted message might have, if you show the notices and define the word. Write the definition in the quote so the word cannot swell overnight.

What should the seller show if they talk about delivery receipts?

Show the notices they received, tied to this send, and label them as transfer events. If they only requested notices and none came back, the proof is the request, which proves nothing about delivery.

One sample is enough to prove the mechanism is real. The totals prove the drop. A screenshot of a checkbox proves a preference. Match the evidence to the claim, the same way you match a signature to the d= domain.

Keep the price attached to the stage you can show. Solo ad pricing for a receipt is a price for a receipt. It becomes a fiction when the receipt was only requested, and it becomes a different fiction when a real receipt is described as a person who read. Ask for the notice. Then ask who, if anyone, opened the mail. They are not the same question.