What causes sender rejection errors and low reputation bounces, particularly with Yahoo, and how can they be resolved?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that sender rejection often occurs due to poor sender reputation stemming from issues like high bounce rates, spam complaints, and being on blocklists. Solutions include improving list hygiene, implementing email authentication, monitoring deliverability metrics, and engaging with recipients to reduce spam complaints and improve sender reputation.
Email marketer from Reddit responds that you should review your IP/domain reputation and check with Yahoo guidelines for bulk senders. Also make sure authentication is setup properly, and list quality is high.
Email marketer from StackOverflow responds that they can't directly answer the question but to be wary about SPF issues with Yahoo. The best way is to whitelist any IPs.
Email marketer from Email on Acid shares that sender rejections and low reputation bounces often result from poor sender reputation due to issues like high bounce rates, spam complaints, and blocklisting. Addressing these problems involves cleaning email lists, implementing email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and monitoring deliverability metrics to ensure emails reach the inbox.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor explains that sender rejections and low reputation bounces can stem from factors such as poor list hygiene, lack of email authentication, and high spam complaint rates. To fix these issues, they suggest regularly cleaning email lists, authenticating your domain with SPF and DKIM, and monitoring deliverability metrics to identify and resolve problems.
Email marketer from Validity shares that sender rejections and low reputation bounces can occur due to problems with sender reputation, list quality, and authentication. Resolutions include cleaning up mailing lists, implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication, monitoring blocklists, and ensuring compliance with sending best practices to improve deliverability.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that sender rejection and low reputation bounces, particularly with Yahoo, can be attributed to factors such as poor list hygiene, lack of email authentication (SPF, DKIM), and spam complaints. Resolving these issues involves cleaning your mailing list, implementing email authentication protocols, and actively monitoring and addressing recipient complaints to improve sender reputation.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that sender rejection and low reputation bounces often arise from issues like sending to invalid email addresses, high complaint rates, and failing to authenticate your emails. To resolve these, it's important to clean your email lists, implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and monitor your sender reputation closely through feedback loops and deliverability reports.
Marketer from Email Geeks indicates that a "sender rejected" bounce could be due to a reputation or blocklist issue, asking if the bounce code is 550 and if the issue is seen for Microsoft or Gmail domains. Further clarifying it could be due to list housekeeping or authentication issues.
Email marketer from GMass explains that sender rejection errors and low reputation bounces from Yahoo might occur if Yahoo deems the email as unwanted, possibly due to a high spam rate or bad IP reputation. They suggest warming up your IP before sending campaigns. It is also crucial to implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to show Yahoo that you are a legitimate email sender and give Yahoo a way to confirm that your emails are not spoofed.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Email Geeks explains that Yahoo tends to start 4xxing mail that's iffy before other providers do and that 4xx deferral at Yahoo (which will get retried) has the same level of apparent urgency as a 5xx rejection.
Expert from Word to the Wise answers that bounces happen because the email address is not valid, the mailbox is full, or the server is temporarily unavailable. You should also be wary of spam traps, which can cause significant deliverability problems. Spam traps are designed to identify senders who are not following best practices for email marketing.
Expert from Email Geeks responds that a significant spike in volume to a mailbox provider recently could be relevant, and that one should worry about the “user complaints” part of the bounce reason. However, getting the full rejection messages may change that.
Expert from Spamresource explains that a sender has probably been blocked or is being filtered and the email server of the sender has identified the response and is bouncing messages. The Spamresource recommends you check your authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), avoid spam traps, clean mailing list, and improve the quality of the email content.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that if Yahoo is rejecting mail for low reputation, the same behavior may cause issues elsewhere. Sharing full rejection messages can give pointers. Further suggesting to break down rejections by recipient domain and that reaching out to your ESPs support team for advice and data is probably the next step.
What the documentation says3Technical articles
Documentation from Postmark explains that bounces can occur due to invalid email addresses, full inboxes, or server issues. To resolve bounce issues, it's crucial to implement proper bounce handling, which includes removing hard bounces from your mailing list, monitoring soft bounces, and ensuring your server is properly configured to receive bounce notifications. Reputation issues can also cause bounces.
Documentation from Yahoo Mail Help explains that emails can be blocked or bounced due to various reasons, including the sender's IP address being listed on blocklists, the sender's domain not having proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), high complaint rates, or sending spam-like content. Resolving these issues involves removing the IP from blocklists, implementing proper authentication, improving email content, and reducing spam complaints.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that sender reputation is a critical factor in email deliverability. Low sender reputation can result from high bounce rates, spam complaints, and being listed on blocklists. To improve sender reputation, they advise authenticating your domain, warming up your IP address, monitoring deliverability metrics, and engaging with recipients to reduce complaints.