How should email marketers handle permanent bounce errors like full or inactive mailboxes?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from EmailGeek explains that regularly cleaning your email list by removing invalid or inactive addresses is vital for maintaining good sender reputation. This includes promptly removing email addresses that result in hard bounces.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that they treat accounts over quota for a certain period as abandoned and begin permanent failures. They suggest removing them from general mailings and potentially trying re-engagement after a few weeks, but clarifies the strategy depends on the client.
Email marketer from HubSpot advises that a high bounce rate can negatively impact your email deliverability. They recommend segmenting your list and removing subscribers who consistently generate hard bounces.
Email marketer from Moosend shares some tips to help prevent bounces that includes using double opt-in, authenticating your emails, cleaning your list, and monitoring your sender score.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum suggests setting up an automated system to remove hard bounces from your list. They also recommend monitoring bounce rates closely to identify any potential problems with your sending practices.
Email marketer from StackExchange shares that they treat hard bounces as a direct signal to stop sending emails to that address. They automatically remove these addresses from their active list.
Email marketer from Sender shares that hard bounces damage the sender's reputation with email providers. Removing hard bounces can lead to better deliverability and engagement rates.
Email marketer from OptinMonster explains that to reduce bounce rates, you should use double opt-in, regularly clean your email list, and authenticate your email. Removing addresses that hard bounce immediately should be part of list maintenance.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that they automatically unsubscribe users after a hard bounce. They also recommend using a double opt-in process to ensure the validity of email addresses from the start.
Email marketer from Neil Patel emphasizes the importance of email list hygiene, including removing hard bounces as soon as possible. Continuing to send emails to these addresses can harm your sender reputation and deliverability rates.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource.com explains that when handling bounces and working to get off a Spamhaus blocklist, it's important to clean the list of bad addresses which will help lower bounce rates, in turn improving reputation and removal from blocklists.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests not sending mail to permanent failures until there's a sign of life (login, purchase, click). Otherwise, you are adding a negative tick to your reputation for no reason.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that Gmail has 2 versions of bounce messages related to a full mailbox: 4.x.x (mailbox full) and 5.x.x (mailbox full and disabled). Gmail data includes all Google products, so users may temporarily fill storage with photos or Drive content.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that one should focus on engagement metrics, and automatically suppress unengaged users to decrease the amount of permanent bounces.
Expert from Email Geeks recommends adding information into websites when email addresses are bouncing.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from RFC explains that SMTP error codes in the 5xx range indicate permanent failures. Email marketers should interpret these errors as a signal to remove the corresponding email address from their lists.
Documentation from Mailjet explains that hard bounces indicate a permanent reason why an email cannot be delivered, such as a non-existent email address. These addresses should be immediately removed from your mailing list to protect your sender reputation.
Documentation from Amazon SES explains that handling bounces effectively involves distinguishing between hard and soft bounces. For hard bounces, which represent permanent delivery failures, removing the recipient from your sending list is the recommended practice to avoid damaging your sender reputation.
Documentation from SendGrid explains that bounce management is crucial for maintaining a healthy sender reputation. Permanent failures, like non-existent mailboxes, should be suppressed immediately to prevent future sending attempts and safeguard deliverability.