How should different bounce types be classified and handled by ESPs?

Email marketer from MailerLite shares that ESPs should automatically process bounces, distinguishing between hard and soft bounces. Hard bounces should result in immediate removal from the subscriber list to protect sender reputation. Soft bounces can be retried for a limited time, after which they should be treated as hard bounces.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that both bounces are "hard" bounces, and as an ESP, they would stop attempting to deliver messages to those addresses and advise customers to suppress them.

Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that high bounce rates negatively affect sender reputation and deliverability. ESPs monitor bounce rates, and exceeding acceptable thresholds can lead to blocked emails. Clean email lists and proper bounce handling are crucial for maintaining good deliverability.

Email marketer from StackOverflow user shares that you can use regex to classify bounces from incoming email. Most ESP's have API's that do all the work for you.

Email marketer from Reddit explains that most ESPs automatically handle bounce processing. It is essential that hard bounces are immediately removed, whereas soft bounces should be retried up to a reasonable limit set by your ESP.

Email marketer from GlockApps shares that ESPs must implement proper bounce handling procedures to maintain good sender reputation. This involves automatically processing hard bounces and suppressing those email addresses immediately, while carefully monitoring and handling soft bounces.

Email marketer from Litmus explains that it is important to understand your bounce rate which is the total bounces divided by the number of emails sent. Good deliverability is often associated with a bounce rate below 2%.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that 5xx errors are generally hard bounces, with rare exceptions.

Email marketer from HubSpot explains that email bounces fall into two main categories: hard bounces and soft bounces. Hard bounces are permanent failures that should be immediately removed from your email list, while soft bounces are temporary issues that can be retried.

Email marketer from DigitalMarketer explains that actively managing your email list health will improve your email deliverability. Immediately remove hard bounces, and understand the reasons behind soft bounces.

Marketer from Email Geeks simply states the bounces should be classified as "Hard".

Expert from SpamResource explains that when identifying and managing non-desirable addresses within an email list, it's essential to differentiate between temporary and permanent failures. Immediate removal of email addresses experiencing permanent failures is crucial for maintaining list hygiene and safeguarding sender reputation.

Expert from Email Geeks suggests classifying the bounces as "remove the address from future mailings" instead of strictly "hard" or "soft", indicating the current bounce management system is flawed.

Expert from Word to the Wise shares the importance of tracking bounces and how bounces are broken down. They share that bounce handling and proper tracking of deliverability are critical for good email marketing.

Documentation from Mailjet explains that bounce types should be classified as either 'hard' or 'soft'. Mailjet automatically handles bounces, suppressing hard bounces to protect sender reputation. Soft bounces are retried a number of times before being considered a hard bounce.

Documentation from RFC Editor provides technical details about Delivery Status Notifications (DSNs). It defines codes and classifications to specify the type of error/failure that occurred during email delivery.

Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that AWS SES categorizes bounces as hard or soft. Hard bounces indicate permanent delivery failures (e.g., invalid email address), requiring immediate removal from the mailing list. Soft bounces indicate temporary issues (e.g., mailbox full), prompting retries and eventual removal after repeated failures.

Documentation from Google Workspace explains that Gmail uses sophisticated methods to detect invalid email addresses to reduce the amount of spam received and improve reliability. If a user is sending email to many invalid addresses, that is a sign that it might be spam and they may apply additional spam prevention measures.

Documentation from SendGrid shares that hard bounces indicate a permanent failure, such as a non-existent email address, and these should be immediately removed from the sending list. Soft bounces are temporary issues, like a full inbox, and can be retried, but after multiple soft bounces, the address should be suppressed.