Managing Bounced Emails: A Marketer's Complete Guide - Mystrika

Bounce, bounce, bounce. Like a pinball machine, emails can ricochet right back to you if not carefully aimed. But with the right strategies, you can minimize bounces and maximize your marketing delivers.
This comprehensive guide will cover everything from bounce rate benchmarks to advanced inbox placement techniques, so you can keep your contacts engaged and your sender reputation pristine.

Say goodbye to high bounce headaches, and hello to email success. Let’s get started!

Page Contents

The Impact of High Bounce Rates

Now that we’ve covered the basics of bounced emails, let’s talk about why you should care – besides just losing out on connecting with that contact.
High bounce rates can seriously impact your email deliverability and performance if left unchecked.

Here are some of the potential consequences:

Deliverability Issues

Each bounced email indicates a delivery failure. As that number grows, so does the impression that your emails can’t reliably reach their destination.

Internet service providers (ISPs) pay attention to bounce rates across sending domains. Too many, and they’ll start throttling how many of your messages are allowed through or begin sending them straight to spam.

You can be flagged as a low-quality sender if bounces exceed 10-15% of your sent volume. Deliverability will suffer until you improve your practices.

Blacklisting Risks

If deliverability issues continue, major ISPs like Gmail or Yahoo may impose harsher restrictions by blacklisting your sending IP address or domain.

Blacklists ban senders with high abuse rates. Too many bounces or spam complaints could get you added, preventing delivery to those domains completely.

Removal from blacklists involves a tedious appeal process. It’s better to be proactive and avoid them altogether through sound email hygiene.

Wasted Time and Resources

Bounces waste your time by damaging deliverability and requiring extra list cleaning efforts. But they also waste tangible marketing resources.

Every bounced message still costs you the small fee charged by your email service provider to send it. Those rejected emails sent to invalid addresses add up.

Repeatedly contacting bounced addresses also wastes personalization and targeting efforts. You end up spamming instead of connecting with potential customers.

Inefficient use of your email and analytics tools inhibits your ability to make data-driven optimizations. Bounces distort open and click rates, muddling insights.

Loss of Trust Among Subscribers

For subscribers who do receive your emails, repeated bounces and deliverability problems could tarnish their trust.

They may doubt your legitimacy or competency if your emails take a convoluted path to their inbox or display spam warnings.

These frustrations may lead them to stop engaging or unsubscribe altogether, further eroding your sender reputation and metrics.

Damaged Senderscore & Domain Reputation

Tools like Senderscore analyze public data to grade your domain’s email deliverability and trustworthiness.

Factors like low engagements rates, high complaints, and elevated bounces will tank your Senderscore. Low grades flag you as “high risk” to recipients and providers.

Poor domain reputation limits email marketing options, as top providers and many internet servers will simply reject messages from risky senders outright.

Declining Metrics Across Channels

Your email program doesn’t operate in a vacuum – poor performance will hurt other marketing channels too.

Lower open and click-through rates distort cross-channel attribution modeling and make ROI impossible to track accurately.

Damaged domain reputation may also cause issues for IP-based tools like web analytics, lowering site visitors and attribution.

So in summary: High bounce rates spell nothing but trouble! Using best practices around list management, content optimization, and scalable systems will help you avert disaster.

Benchmarking Your Bounce Rate Performance

Now that you know the risks of excessive bounces, where should your rates actually be?
Industry benchmarks exist to evaluate your bounce rates against email marketing standards.

Average Bounce Rates by Industry

Acceptable bounce rates vary somewhat by industry, based on average list quality and subscriber demographics.

According to Mailchimp data, average bounce rates by sector are:

Retail: 5%
Software/SaaS: 4%
Nonprofit: 6%
Publishing/Media: 7%
Financial Services: 3%
Marketing Agencies: 4%

B2C industries tend to see more bounces due to larger, constantly changing audiences. B2B’s smaller lists of engaged contacts lead to lower bounce rates.

Recommended Bounce Rate Goals

Most experts advise keeping your bounce rates at or below these thresholds:

Hard bounce rate: 2% or less
Soft bounce rate: 5% or less
Total bounce rate: 10% or less

The lower your rates, the better for deliverability. But less than 2% hard bounces is solid, while 5% soft bounces gives you buffer before hitting 10% combined.

Factors That Influence Bounce Rates

Several variables impact bounce benchmarks, including:

List size – Larger lists see more bounces, especially if list hygiene suffers.
List source – Purchased, rented, or low-quality lists have more invalid data.
Industry – B2C and retail face more volatile contact details.
Email type – Bulk blasts tend to perform worse than tailored outreach.
Sending cadence – Frequent emails often have higher engagements but also bounces.
List maintenance – Poor hygiene doubles bounces over time as data decays.

Benchmark against lists similar to yours, and optimize according to your unique variables.

Monitoring Tools

Robust email analytics tools are invaluable for tracking bounce rates and benchmarking performance.

Mailchimp provides detailed bounce reports and aggregate rates.
SendGrid lets you dive into granular bounce data.
SparkPost delivers actionable bounce insights.

Many marketing automation and CRM systems also track email metrics for integrated campaign analysis.

The Mailchimp Standard

As a leader in the email marketing space, Mailchimp’s benchmarks provide an excellent baseline for bounce rate expectations:

Image source: Mailchimp

With diligent list management and optimized campaigns, you should be able to meet or exceed industry standards.

Use these bounce benchmarks to evaluate the health of your email program and make data-driven improvements.

How to Reduce Bounces in Your Email Campaigns

Now that you know the bounce rate targets to aim for, let’s talk strategy. Here are some best practices for minimizing bounces.

Confirm and Clean Your Contact List

An outdated or inaccurate contact list is the number one cause of high bounce rates. Follow these maintenance tips:

Reconfirm subscribers regularly to remove invalid email addresses. Sending reconfirmation campaigns in Mailchimp is a breeze.
Remove hard bounces immediately upon discovery to maintain list accuracy. Mailchimp handles this automatically.
Delete inactive subscribers who haven’t opened in 6+ months to declutter your list.
Scrub for spam traps like @example.com or [email protected] which guarantee bounces.
Validate new sign-ups with double opt-in integrations to prevent fake addresses.
Invest in list cleaning services to periodically purge inaccurate records.

Valid contacts ensure your emails reach the inboxes rather than bouncing in vain.

Address Spam Filter Triggers

Make inbox placement a priority to avoid soft bounces. Here are some spam filter red flags to address:

Avoid spammy words like “free,” “cheap,” “buy now” which raise red flags.
Use engaging subject lines that pique curiosity rather than look salesy.
Personalize content so messages don’t resemble mass blasts.
Send consistently from the same IP and domain which builds trust over time.
Provide an unsubscribe link and respect opt-out requests immediately.

Optimizing your emails for the inbox prevents recipients’ spam filters from blocking them.

Handle Hard Vs. Soft Bounces

Distinguish between hard and soft bounces when addressing causes:

For hard bounces, remove addresses permanently to prevent continuous failed deliveries.
For transient soft bounces, retry sending over several days before suppressing that address.
Review recent engagement data before removing soft bounces. If subscribers were recently active, keep emailing them.
Check bounce error messages for troubleshooting clues, like mailbox full errors. Follow up individually in those cases.
Segment soft bounces into resend buckets based on error types and engagement history.

Custom bounce handling processes help you turn soft bounces around without unnecessary removals.

Warm Up New Contacts

Onboard new contacts with care to avoid early bounces. Consider warming up new additions:

Send a series of 3-4 welcome emails over a couple weeks, building engagement slowly. Avoid sales pitches initially.
Monitor warmup campaign analytics for any bounces to remove bad addresses immediately before continuing drip flows.
Limit new contact batch size to avoid overwhelming your IP’s reputation if many are invalid.
Throttle sends so large batch additions don’t spike sending volume and trip spam filters.

Slowly warming up contacts with relevant content helps validate new addresses before you dive into campaigns.

Taking a nurturing approach to list growth prevents bounces down the road for those contacts. Take the time to do email onboarding right.

Advanced Bounce Management Strategies

Once you’ve implemented bounce prevention basics, more advanced strategies exist to further optimize your programs. Here are some additional tactics for minimizing bounces.

Dive Deep Into Bounce Logs

Don’t just look at aggregate bounce rates – drill down into the bounce reports themselves:

Review bounce reasons in campaign sending logs and individual subscriber profiles. Look for any patterns in the error messages.
Segment bounces by error type, response code, email domain, etc to pinpoint systemic issues.
Cross-reference bounce spikes with sending volumes and campaign types to identify potential triggering factors.
Compare hard vs soft bounce volumes to determine where attention needs focus – removal or reengagement.
Note subscriber engagement metrics like open and click rates to identify highly active soft bounces to keep emailing.
Stay on top of daily bounce logs to catch issues early before rates creep up.

Granular analysis of bounce data helps you make optimizations tailored to your specific email program.

Implement Sender Authentication

Email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC help reinforce your legitimacy as a sender to ISPs and prevent bounces.

SPF confirms you’re authorized to send from your domain by whitelisting your IP addresses.
DKIM encrypts messages with a private key to verify they haven’t been tampered with.
DMARC aligns SPF and DKIM to reject unvalidated emails.

Properly configuring these protocols ensures your mail servers and recipients recognize your messages as valid.

Use An Inbox Placement Service

Third-party inbox placement tools focus on optimizing email deliverability through:

Warming up new domains and IPs with vetted inboxes to build sending reputation.
Safelisting with major ISPs to bypass spam filters and avoid false positives.
Feedback loops to identify and resolve potential issues proactively.
Dedicated IP addresses with strong sending reputations to avoid sharing limitations.
Suppressing risky contacts like spambots, honeypots, and unreliable domains.

Services like Sender](https://www.sender.net/) and [InboxPro offer deliverability solutions.

Adjust Your Sending Cadence

Find an optimal email frequency that minimizes inactive subscriber complaints and bounces. Consider:

Sending promotional content bi-weekly or monthly with more important updates weekly and time-sensitive alerts as they occur.
Matching cycles to natural contact rhythms – like monthly for long-sales cycle industries or weekly for more engaged retail consumers.
Scaling back messaging if bounces spike after a series of particularly frequent broadcasts. Spreading things out may provide inbox relief.
Avoiding abrupt, large spikes in volume that may overwhelm recipient servers and trigger blocking. Scale up sends gradually.
Pausing messages to unengaged contacts who haven’t opened in 3+ months to clean out potential inactives.

Testing different pacing and volumes will help you land on the optimal balance for your audience.

Review Your Sending Source

The configuration of your sending domain can also impact deliverability:

Choose a reputable email service provider like Mailchimp or SendGrid who optimizes deliverability on the backend.
Set up dedicated IPs for reduced sharing and maximum control of your sender reputation.
Use custom domains tied to your brand which engender more subscriber trust.
Send from domains with strong metrics and avoid newer, unestablished sending sources.
Limit use of free email clients like Gmail which bear higher abuse risks.

Your backend email infrastructure influences how recipients perceive and filter your mail before it ever reaches contacts.

Suppress Unreliable Domains

Some problematic email domains are prone to security issues, nonexistent accounts, or rejection of legitimate commercial email. Maintaining blocklists of domains with exceedingly high bounce rates that fail repeated reengagement attempts can maximize your deliverability.

This doesn’t mean blocking any domains associated with soft bounces. But in extreme cases of domains bouncing over 25-30% of your messages repeatedly, you may need to exclude the most unreliable domains as a last resort.

Make Address Hygiene A Habit

Don’t just occasionally clean your list – make ongoing bounce monitoring and hygiene part of your regular email workflows.

Check bounce rates daily to catch problems before they escalate.
Remove hard bounces in real time rather than letting them accumulate.
Nurture soft bounces with relevant content before writing them off.
Confirm subscriber addresses annually to detect outdated records.
Review your sending reputation and domain metrics monthly for anything impacting placements.
Have clear processes for managing bounces across your team to spot and resolve issues quickly.

Proactive list care and send optimization is the key to staying ahead of deliverability issues and avoiding excessive bounces.

Bounce Rate Optimization for Different Industries

Email marketing takes shape differently across industries. What works for an e-commerce retailer may not suit a SaaS startup’s needs.
In this section, we’ll explore bounce management strategies tailored to unique business types.

Retail Bounce Rate Tips

Retail marketers battle extensive circulation lists and constantly changing data. Here are tips to keep retail bounce rates low:

Confirm addresses at checkout to refresh subscriber data with each purchase.
Cross-reference with order histories – buyers tend to have valid addresses. Focus cleaning on non-buyers.
Offer a newsletter-specific double opt-in to validate subscribers.
Incentivize re-engagement with coupon codes or special sales to prevent inactive list decay.
Develop recoverable soft bounce nurture tracks to reactivate temporarily dormant subscribers with personalized content.
Suppress previous hard bounces when launching campaigns to avoid repetition.
Introduce minimum purchase requirements for subscriptions to indicate clear subscriber interest.

Proactive list management provides the foundation for email success despite volatile retail demographics.

SaaS Bounce Rate Recommendations

For SaaS companies with targeted outreach, aim for bounce perfection.

Research prospect contact info thoroughly and don’t guess on titles, departments, or domains.
Double opt-in all sign-ups to validate data from the start.
Personalize sequences using custom fields like company, role, and use case to avoid spammy messaging.
Actively update your CRM as prospects provide new information to keep data current.
Manually verify any questionable addresses tagged by sales reps to be sure records are accurate before adding them.
Review engagements closely to determine valid soft bounces worth continuing to email.

Obsessive list quality and personalization is expected for SaaS success. Don’t cut corners.

Nonprofit Bounce Rate Pointers

Nonprofits often have high bounce rates due to public visibility and donated lists. Try these tips:

Limit use of phone or document-sourced data which has higher inaccuracy rates.
Confirm volunteer contacts annually since their roles tend to change more frequently.
Scrub donated or purchased lists through change of address tools and other validation processes before use.
Reconfirm subscriber consent along with address confirmation to honor privacy.
Share bounce rate metrics in donor stewardship reports to show commitment to quality relationships.

While some data quality issues are unavoidable, taking an opt-in approach and focusing cleaning efforts on higher-risk sources can help.

Optimizing Agency Bounce Rates

For agencies managing many client accounts, consistency and quality control are crucial for low bounce rates across the board.

Standardize list management processes using your ESP’s built-in tools as much as possible for efficiency.
Enforce stringent opt-in requirements and conservative sending limits contractually to limit client risks.
Implement an onboarding drip sequence to validate new contacts from high-volume client lists and prevent early bounces.
Add compliance clauses around bounce rate limits and list accuracy to client contracts.
Help clients create lead magnets to incentivize opt-ins and build quality subscriber bases.
Conduct periodic audits to catch any outlier client accounts in need of cleaning.

Following agency-wide bouncing prevention policies ensures client successes.

Key Takeaways on Managing Bounced Emails

Optimizing your email program to minimize bounces and maximize deliverability takes diligence, but pays off in stronger metrics, open rates, and subscriber relationships.
Here are the key takeaways to remember:

Monitor your bounce rates closely across both hard and soft bounces. Aim to keep hard bounces under 2%, soft under 5%, and total under 10%.
Clean your list regularly by removing hard bounces, reengaging soft bounces, and reconfirming inactive subscriber addresses.
Dive into your bounce logs frequently to analyze patterns, error messages, and troubleshoot issues.
Tweak your content, cadence, and other sending factors to avoid triggering spam filters and hitting recipient inbox limits.
Implement email authentication with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to build trust with ISPs and recipients.
Warm up any new subscribers or test batches to validate addresses are accurate before full onboarding.
Adjust your bounce management approach based on list size, industry, and other factors unique to your program.

With consistent attention and optimization, you can keep bounce rates low, subscribers engaged, and your sender reputation strong. What’s your current bounce management strategy? Feel free to share any questions below!

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average bounce rate I should aim for?

Experts recommend keeping your hard bounce rate under 2%, soft bounce rate under 5%, and total bounce rate under 10%. The lower you can keep your bounce rates, the better for deliverability.

How often should I clean my contact list?

For basic maintenance, review bounces and remove invalid emails daily. Confirm and clean your entire list quarterly. High-volume programs or industries with frequent turnover may need more frequent attention.

What are the main causes of a high bounce rate?

The top reasons for high bounce rates include outdated contact data, purchased/rented lists, spam filter triggers, sudden spikes in volume, invalid email address syntax, and problems with the sending domain.

Should I remove contacts after a soft bounce?

Not immediately. Continue re-engaging soft bounces through a few more emails first before suppressing them. Soft bounces indicate a temporary issue, so contacts could recover.

How can I recover hard bounced addresses?

You can attempt to re-engage hard bounces by altering your content, switching sending IP/domain, or using an inbox placement service. But repeated hard bounces should eventually be removed.

What tools can help me manage bounces?

Robust email service providers like Mailchimp offer detailed bounce logs and list management tools. You can also use standalone validation services like ZeroBounce or NeverBounce.

How often should I re-confirm my list?

Best practice is to re-confirm subscriber addresses at least annually. You can do this manually or use built-in list reconfirmation tools. More frequent reconfirmation may be wise for industries with high turnover.