What causes high bounce rates on Cyber Monday and how to prevent them?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor advises monitoring spam complaints. High spam complaint rates directly correlate with higher bounce rates and lower deliverability.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that regular list cleaning is paramount. Remove hard bounces immediately and suppress serial soft bouncers after a few attempts.
Email marketer from EmailToolTester emphasizes the need for permission-based marketing. Sending to purchased lists or contacts without explicit consent significantly increases bounce rates and spam complaints.
Email marketer from Litmus recommends validating email addresses at the point of entry (e.g., signup forms) to prevent invalid addresses from entering your list.
Marketer from Email Geeks (Michelle) confirms that the email ramp-up during the holidays likely triggered spam filters. Marketer from Email Geeks (Steve) advises splitting the list into segments based on engagement to prioritize sends and analyse the 'worst 5%' segment to demonstrate issues to stakeholders.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests checking bounce codes/responses and if anything different was done. He refers to AT&T support for basics and advises analysing the list for inactive segments, especially the worst 5%, to justify its inclusion. He suspects the Black Friday period's busyness may have led to arbitrary spam decisions. Finally if deliverability returns to normal, continue the data analysis.
Email marketer from Mailjet Blog explains that high bounce rates during Cyber Monday can stem from sending to outdated lists, increased spam complaints, or hitting spam traps. They recommend cleaning your list, warming up IPs, and segmenting sends.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce explains that regularly using an email validation service to identify and remove invalid, risky, and inactive email addresses before sending helps maintain a clean list and reduces bounce rates.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that during Cyber Monday, you should ensure your IP address is properly warmed up, gradually increasing sending volume to establish a positive sending reputation.
Email marketer from HubSpot Blog suggests segmenting your list based on engagement. Send to your most active subscribers first to improve deliverability and reduce bounce rates.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise recommends implementing a sunset policy to remove inactive subscribers. Sending to unengaged recipients lowers engagement metrics and increases the risk of bounces and spam complaints.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that careful bounce management is crucial for maintainability. It's important to distinguish between hard and soft bounces. Hard bounces should be removed immediately, while soft bounces should be retried a few times before removal. Proper bounce handling is vital for sender reputation.
Expert from Spam Resource explains that one major cause of deliverability issues that impact bounce rates is poor list hygiene. This comes down to bad data, where data has not been validated or email addresses are old.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that if you’re experiencing high bounce rates (higher than 2%), it might be a sign that you’re not following best practices and should review what is happening. Some things to check are if the list is old, was it permission passed etc. You can also use a 3rd party service to review data.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from SendGrid explains that hard bounces typically indicate permanent delivery failures (invalid email address), while soft bounces are temporary issues (full mailbox). Understanding these distinctions is crucial for list hygiene.
Documentation from Google explains that sender reputation is crucial for deliverability. Monitor your reputation in Google Postmaster Tools to identify and address potential issues.
Documentation from Mailchimp explains that regularly cleaning your email list and removing inactive subscribers improves engagement metrics and helps maintain a healthy sender reputation, which reduces bounce rates.
Documentation from RFC Editor details SMTP error codes, which provide insights into the reason for bounces. Analyzing these codes helps diagnose and address specific delivery issues.
Documentation from SparkPost states that setting up feedback loops with major ISPs helps you identify and remove subscribers who mark your emails as spam, which improves deliverability and reduces bounce rates.