How do I troubleshoot and fix increased bounce rates in Gmail for lead series and transactional emails?

Email marketer from Litmus shares that maintaining a clean email list is critical. This involves regularly removing inactive subscribers, correcting typos, and using double opt-in to ensure subscribers are genuinely interested in receiving emails. They also advise against purchasing email lists.

Marketer from Email Geeks recommends adding reCAPTCHA or hCAPTCHA to forms to prevent bots.

Email marketer from Gmass shares about the importance of warming up your email address. They advise gradually increasing your sending volume over time to establish a positive sending reputation with email providers like Gmail.

Marketer from Email Geeks asks if a honeypot field on the signup form could be used in addition to reCAPTCHA to combat bots.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that a recent increase in bounce rate, especially with Gmail, could indicate your IP address has been flagged as a spam source. They recommend checking your IP's reputation on various blacklists and contacting Gmail support.

Email marketer from Hubspot suggests using double opt-in to confirm subscribers' email addresses and consent to receive emails. This helps prevent typo-related bounces and improves list quality.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign shares about monitoring your domain reputation, as it affects deliverability. They advise regularly checking your domain against blocklists and ensuring your email practices align with best practices to maintain a good reputation.

Email marketer from EmailToolTester explains how spam filters can be triggered by certain words, poor HTML code, high image-to-text ratio, and sending from a blacklisted IP. The email marketer recommends testing emails using spam checker tools before sending.

Email marketer from Mailjet explains that bounce rates may increase due to outdated email lists, sending to non-existent addresses, or poor sender reputation. Suggests cleaning email lists regularly and monitoring sender reputation.

Email marketer from Reddit shares that a sudden increase in bounce rates can be caused by several factors, including a recent change in Gmail's spam filtering rules, a compromised email account, or a sudden influx of invalid email addresses. They recommend checking Gmail's Postmaster Tools for more information.

Email marketer from SendPulse shares that to improve email deliverability, you need to warm up your IP address, segment your audience, personalize emails, remove inactive subscribers, and avoid spam trigger words.

Marketer from Email Geeks recommends setting up Google Postmaster Tools for sending domains to gain insights beyond campaign performance metrics.

Email marketer from StackOverflow shares for transactional emails, ensure your sending infrastructure is properly configured (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and that you are following best practices for sending email. Also, monitor your IP and domain reputation to ensure you're not being blacklisted.

Expert from Spamresource explains that one of the top reasons for deliverability issues at Gmail and other large providers relates to IP and domain reputation. Suggests monitoring blocklists and using tools to assess sender reputation.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains about the importance of list hygiene. Suggests cleaning out old unengaged addresses to improve deliverability. It also explains why some people won't engage, eg: job role change, left company, etc.

Expert from Spamresource explains the importance of processing bounce messages promptly and accurately. They advise setting up automated systems to handle bounces and suppress invalid addresses from future mailings, maintaining a healthy list and sender reputation.

Expert from Email Geeks says to also watch for the same IP address or email address signing up for multiple customers as a red flag. Keeping an audit trail of all signup metadata so that when a user agent with a distinctive feature has been doing Bad Things you can go back and see what else they’ve signed up, and remove those addresses.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests if the lead series is unsolicited mail, it might damage the sender's reputation and impact transactional mail. Additionally, if emails are gathered during a purchase process, those that don't result in a purchase should be treated with suspicion.

Expert from Email Geeks explains approaches to harden forms, like honeypot fields and changing form field names. Also mentions silently requiring JavaScript, using third-party IP reputation services, and watching for multiple signups from the same IP or email address.

Expert from Email Geeks refers to a Spamhaus suggestion to use CAPTCHA and recommends investigating the data being POSTed if it's easily captured. <https://www.spamhaus.org/resource-hub/threat-intelligence/subscription-bombing-coi-captcha-and-the-next-generation-of-mail-bombs/>

Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that senders should authenticate their email using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They should also avoid sending unwanted email, and monitor their sender reputation using Postmaster Tools.

Documentation from Microsoft Support explains that undeliverable email messages, also known as bounce messages, are sent when an email cannot be delivered. This can be due to a number of reasons, including the recipient's mailbox being full, the recipient's server being unavailable, or the email being blocked by a spam filter. Suggests checking the bounce message for more information.

Documentation from RFC 5240 provides information on SMTP Enhanced Status Codes which helps in diagnosing email delivery issues, including bounce reasons. Enhanced codes offer granular detail that are better than standard SMTP codes.

Documentation from SparkPost details different bounce codes and what they mean. It provides a comprehensive reference for understanding the different types of email bounces and how to address each one.