How do overquota bounces in Gmail affect sender reputation and what is the best strategy to manage users with overquota errors?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from SendGrid explains that managing bounces, including 'over quota' bounces, is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation. They recommend automatically removing recipients who consistently trigger bounces from your sending list.
Email marketer from OptinMonster recommends cleaning your email list regularly to improve deliverability. Overquota bounces are an indicator of low-quality addresses which should be removed.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that consistent overquota bounces can hurt your reputation over time. They recommend setting up an automated soft bounce rule to remove users who consistently bounce with overquota messages, give them a break, and then try resending in smaller volumes. They suggest permanently suppressing addresses that continue to bounce as over quota.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that consistently sending emails to overquota addresses negatively affects sender reputation. They advise implementing a bounce management strategy to automatically remove or suppress recipients who repeatedly trigger hard bounces (like overquota errors).
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum advises segmenting email lists based on engagement and suppressing unengaged users to reduce the likelihood of overquota bounces. Also recommends implementing a double opt-in process to ensure only valid email addresses are added to the list.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that Google allots 15GB of storage for accounts (Email, Drive, etc.). He suggests if you are receiving many over-quota responses, to consider if the email list is clean, given a person has to have 100k emails to hit that quota.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests immediately suppressing users who trigger overquota bounces to protect sender reputation. They advise segmenting lists and sending to engaged users more frequently, while reducing frequency to less engaged recipients to prevent quota issues.
Email marketer from SparkPost notes that 'over quota' bounces are typically categorized as hard bounces, signaling a permanent issue. They recommend immediately suppressing hard bounces to maintain sender health.
Email marketer from Email Vendor Selection suggests monitoring bounce rates and actively managing email lists to prevent deliverability issues. Addressing bounces from full inboxes (over quota errors) promptly is a key aspect of list hygiene.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that ignoring bounce messages can damage your reputation and recommends following your provider's bounce rules. They suggest spacing out mailings to overquota users to see if delivery is possible later. If the user is overquota for months, consider removing them.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource.com explains that having good list hygiene practices is critical to maintaining sender reputation. They explain that bounces are a critical metric for understanding list hygiene and must be actioned. Although not directly answering the question, overquota errors are bounces which must be managed effectively.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that bounces should be processed correctly, including temporary failures. While this article doesn't mention overquota specifically, understanding and acting upon temporary bounce codes which is what overquota is, is critical for maintaining a good sender reputation. Ignoring these impacts sender reputation.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft states that mailbox full issues will result in a non-delivery report which impacts your sender reputation. It suggests removing email addresses which result in bounces.
Documentation from AWS SES explains that when a recipient's mailbox is full ('over quota'), it results in a bounce. Repeatedly sending to these addresses negatively impacts your sender reputation and deliverability.
Documentation from Google Support explains that Gmail shares 15 GB of storage across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. Once this limit is reached, users may experience issues receiving emails. Accounts exceeding the limit for 2 years are at risk of having all their emails deleted.
Documentation from RFC Editor explains that an 'Over Quota' error should be returned as a permanent failure (5.2.2) - 5.2.2 indicates a permanent error.