The problem was hidden in the contact list. Out of roughly 5,000 contacts, a growing number could no longer receive email. Some inboxes had closed. Some members had changed jobs and lost their old work email addresses. Others held simple typos from when they were first collected. All of them still looked valid in the system, so the Chamber kept emailing them.

A few years ago, those dead addresses would have been harmless. Not anymore. Providers like Gmail and Outlook now watch how often a sender’s messages are undelivered (bounced back) and the Chamber’s rejection rate had reached 12% — well above the 2–3% considered healthy. Its sender reputation was slipping, and that was starting to affect delivery to active, valid contacts too.