High bounce rates can have negative effects on a business in several ways. First, it can lead to wasted resources, including time, effort, and money spent on creating and sending the email. Second, high bounce rates can negatively impact the sender's email reputation, ultimately affecting future emails' deliverability.
In this article, we'll explore what is a hard bounce in email and how to overcome it.
Defining hard bounce vs. soft bounce in email
When an email in an email marketing campaign "bounces," it means that the email was undeliverable and sent back to the sender.
Bounces can be classified as hard or soft bounces, depending on why the email didn't reach the recipient's mailbox.
A hard bounce occurs when the email delivery fails due to a permanent error, such as an invalid email address, a non-existent domain, or a blocked email address.
A soft bounce means the email failed due to a temporary issue. This could be due to reasons such as a full recipient's inbox, a recipient's email server issue, or an email size that is too large. Soft bounce indicates that the recipient's address may be valid, and the email service provider will attempt to deliver the email again over a period of time. If the email continues to bounce back, it may eventually become a hard bounce.
It is essential for businesses to keep track of bounce rates and distinguish between hard bounces and soft bounces. Hard bounces should be removed from the email list immediately, as they negatively influence the sender reputation, lower email delivery rates, and fail spam filters.
Soft bounces may require further investigation, as they may be temporary issues with the recipient's mailbox that can be resolved. By monitoring and managing email bounce rates, businesses can maintain a clean email list and increase the effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns.
How to avoid hard bounces in email marketing
Here are a couple of tips on how to avoid hard bounces in email marketing:
- Verify email addresses
There are several email verification tools available that can help to identify invalid email addresses before you add them to your list. - Use double opt-in
This helps to check if the email address is invalid and if the subscriber is interested in receiving emails from your business. - Update the subscriber list
Clean your email list regularly by removing email addresses that make emails bounce or have low customer engagement for a prolonged period. - Avoid using purchased or rented email lists
Such email lists may include invalid or outdated email addresses, leading to hard bounces.
How hard bounce in email works
When an email message is sent, it is routed through multiple email servers before reaching its destination. If the email address is no longer valid or the recipient's mail server is blocking incoming messages, the email will be returned to the sender with a hard bounce message. This message typically includes a reason for the bounce, such as "user unknown" or "invalid domain name."
Examples of hard bounce in email
Here are some examples of hard bounces:
- A business sends an email newsletter to its email list. The newsletter returns with a hard bounce message stating that the recipient's email address is no longer valid.
- An individual sends an email to a friend's email address. The email bounces back with a hard bounce message stating that the email address does not exist.
- An organization sends an email to a large email list. A few emails bounce back with a hard bounce message stating that the receiving server is blocking incoming messages.
Wrapping up
Regularly tracking hard and soft bounces in email marketing is crucial for businesses to maintain healthy and engaged mailing lists. By monitoring and analyzing a bounce rate, businesses can identify invalid or inactive email addresses that can negatively impact their email deliverability. This allows them to clean their email list and optimize future email marketing campaigns for better results.
