Email marketing is one of the most effective channels to communicate with your audience through promotional campaigns, newsletters, or transactional emails.
While it is the most effective, it comes with challenges in ensuring that your emails reach your recipient's inbox.
One of the common challenges that marketers face is email bounces. Understanding why emails bounce and how to handle them properly can help you significantly increase your delivery rates and marketing performance.
This blog will explore an email bounce, the different types of bounces, how they impact email delivery, and best practices to manage and reduce bounces.
An email bounce occurs when an email is returned to the sender due to deliverability. In this case, the email is returned to the sender with an error attached. It typically occurs due to issues on either the recipient's end, the sender's end, or the pathway in between.
Email service providers (ESPs) usually notify the sender when a bounce occurs, providing a reason for the failure, although not always with complete clarity.
Two kinds of email bounces can occur while emailing. These include
A hard bounce is a permanent failure, meaning the email cannot be delivered under any circumstances. This happens when the recipient’s email address is invalid, doesn’t exist, or the domain is incorrect. Hard bounces should be addressed immediately to prevent further issues with deliverability.
A soft bounce is a temporary failure, meaning the email reached the recipient’s email server but could not be delivered due to issues such as a full mailbox or temporary server problems. In many cases, soft bounces resolve themselves, and the email may be successfully delivered in a subsequent attempt.
Email bounces can negatively impact the sender's reputation, which is a key factor for determining your campaigns' future success and whether the emails make it into your sender's inboxes or spam folders.
If a sender gets too many bounces, email service providers may classify them as spammers, reducing the chances of successful delivery.
High bounce rates signal poor list hygiene and can lead to penalties, such as throttling (slowing down the rate at which your emails are delivered) or blacklisting (blocking all future emails from your domain or IP).
Understanding bounce rates and taking corrective measures is essential for maintaining your email program's effectiveness.
To measure your bounce rate, use the following formula:
Bounce Rate = (Total Bounced Emails / Total Sent Emails) × 100
An acceptable bounce rate typically falls below 2%. Anything higher indicates that you must address underlying email list or practices issues.
You can easily avoid email bounces by understanding the reasons behind why email bounce occurs. Some of the key reasons behind email bounce rates include:
An email may bounce because of a non-existent Recipient’s mail address. This may also occur as specific typographical errors in the email address, users abandoning their account, or you procuring older lists. As a rule, this type of bounce is associated with non-existent addresses.
An email may bounce in certain circumstances, such as when the server is offline or not capable of accepting emails. It is usually not permanent, but due to this, it causes a soft bounce.
It means if the recipient's address has a full capacity for his or her mailbox, new messages cannot be delivered. This leads to a soft bounce, and one must clear the recipient's inbox to eliminate this problem.
If a recipient has an out-of-office/vacation auto responder set up, your message may simply be returned with an auto reply. This bounce hardly impacts email reputation as it is not exclusive to email delivery; it is rather normal.
Some emails end up being captured by the recipient’s email server for some reasons, including the content being flagged, having an inefficient authentication process, or being listed on the blacklist. One must understand why it has been blocked and solve the cause to avoid recurring.
An email may bounce when the recipient’s account has been deactivated because of some policy infringement, an age limit, or prolonged inactivity. This may be a soft bounce, but it can quickly transform into a hard bounce in case the suspension persists.
There are other related issues that may result in email bouncing for example limits on the size of emails that one can send, problems with attachments, and faulty document formats. One should try and analyze the bounce reasons given by the mail service provider.
It is advisable to adhere to proper email etiquette and responsibility to avoid many email bounces, which will, in turn, affect the delivery of emails. Below are some strategies to handle email bounces effectively:
First, make the distinction between the hard and the soft bounces. The first type, hard bounces, should be addressed as soon as possible, for instance, by deleting invalid addresses. The second type, soft bounces, may just need to be closely watched for patterns or frequency.
E-mail lists should be updated occasionally, removing or changing invalid, inactive, or misspelled email addresses. Hard bouncers are a problem for the sender and their recipient; tools that filter hard bounces can avoid such cases in the future.
Some targets that you need to monitor include bounce rates. If the bounce rate has shot up in one go, this may mean a problem in your email list, campaign techniques, or domain reputation. You get to identify any problem areas that may affect your deliverability before the problem unveils itself fully.
Specifically, to prevent bounces, it is helpful to divide subscribers’ lists into two groups: active and inactive users. For example, a campaign could send special offers to subscribers who haven’t read the previous newsletters, and only after that will they be added to the regular ones.
Emails that relay messages that activate spam filters, such as those using predetermined words, links, or pictures, may lead to blocked or bounced emails. Also, make sure that the content you put in the emails is not too heavy and is in line with the proper and effective use of emails.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are the leading email authentication tools that provide credibility to email campaigns. It is to inform you that without the correct authentication, your emails can be treated as spam and blocked or denied.
Most email marketing solutions provide options for a feedback loop, which enables recipients to report received messages as spam. Attend to these complaints early by ensuring that those who do not want to be contacted are delisted to reduce the level of complaints.
Keep your email list updated by using double opt-ins, re-confirmation processes, and periodically validating the accuracy of email addresses. These practices can ensure you're sending to active and valid recipients.
An email marketing platform like Mailmunch can provide built-in tools for managing bounces, handling complaints, and optimizing deliverability. Features such as list validation, segmentation, and bounce reporting are essential for improving your email marketing outcomes.
Ensure that everyone involved in your email marketing campaigns understands the importance of list hygiene, bounce management, and best practices for email delivery. Educating your team helps prevent common mistakes that lead to high bounce rates and poor deliverability.
TLDR or Takeaways that you can take from this blog include:
Focusing on these critical areas can significantly reduce the negative impact of email bounces and ensure your campaigns reach their full potential.
Keeping bounce rates low is not just about better deliverability; it also helps you foster a stronger relationship with your audience and boost the overall performance of your email marketing efforts.
Some of the ways you can fix a soft bounce include:
Gmail mail bouncing can depend on your account settings and the content of the message. A number of reasons can cause a mail to bounce, such as the email being marked as spam or an inbound gateway restriction that can cause a recipient server to reject the message.
Yes, emails sent to an invalid email can cause an email bounce. Also, the email will bounce back if the subscriber has blocked or unsubscribed from the service.
M. Usama is an SEO Growth Specialist and Content Marketer at Mailmunch. He is passionate about crafting engaging and informative content on email marketing and lead generation.
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October 4, 2024
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