Today we received this question from a client regarding the company’s E-Newsletter mail list: What Are Hard Bounces and What Should We Do with Them?
A: When your E-News is rejected by someone’s email server, it’s called a bounce. There are different types of bounces, depending on the reason for the bounce. Keep track of your bounce numbers to ensure that your E-Newsletter campaigns are reaching your audience, and that you’re following spam laws.
Hard Bounces
A hard bounce has a permanent reason an email won’t reach its indented recipient. This can include:
- Email address does not exist
- Domain name does not exist
- Subscriber email server has blocked delivery
If there are any hard bounces on your subscriber list, those emails need to be removed. The reason: If sending too many hard bounces, you get a lower quality score from serves. That in turn can increase the number of hard bounces. That is, servers will start to view you as a regular sender of spam. This Hubspot article advises: “Try to keep your total bounce rate under 2% — much higher than that, and you’ll start noticing some deliverability issues.”
Soft Bounces
Soft bounces mean there is a temporary delivery issue. Since soft bounces may go through, keep those on your e-mail list, unless these turn into hard bounces at some point.
At D Media, we help clients create, launch and manage E-Newsletters and E-Blasts. From content to design, from scheduling to distribution, contact D Media for your digital tactical marketing needs.