What causes soft bounces for a single contact and how should they be handled?

Email marketer from Mailchimp explains that a soft bounce indicates a temporary delivery issue, such as a full inbox, a server problem, or the email size. Mailchimp automatically handles some soft bounces by retrying delivery, but persistent soft bounces should be removed from your list to avoid deliverability issues.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum User mentions that soft bounces are usually caused by a full inbox or temporary server issues. The user recommends trying to resend the email a couple of times, but if the soft bounce persists, it’s best to remove the address to protect your sender reputation.

Marketer from Email Geeks answers to turn off a contact if bounces occur with a single contact and not the whole domain.

Email marketer from HubSpot explains that soft bounces indicate temporary delivery problems, such as a full recipient inbox or server issues. HubSpot suggests automatically retrying delivery for soft bounces, but recommends removing contacts who repeatedly soft bounce to maintain good deliverability and sender reputation.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign shares that soft bounces can happen because of temporary problems such as a server being down or a full inbox. ActiveCampaign suggests monitoring soft bounce rates. If a contact consistently soft bounces, it might be best to remove them from your list.

Email marketer from Quora user explains that a soft bounce typically means a temporary issue, such as the recipient's server being down or the mailbox being at its limit. They suggest allowing a few retry attempts, but if the soft bounce continues, it's best to remove the email from the list to maintain deliverability.

Email marketer from Sendinblue explains that soft bounces are temporary delivery failures. They mention reasons such as a full mailbox or server problems. The advice given is that the system will often retry sending the email, but persistent soft bounces should be managed by removing the recipient from the list to maintain a healthy sender reputation.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that if the configuration issue is dependent on a specific receiving MX or some customer-related condition, the error could be related to a misconfigured on-premise Exchange server.

Email marketer from Reddit user shares that soft bounces are often due to the recipient's server being temporarily unavailable or their mailbox being full. They advise to let the system retry a few times, but if the soft bounces persist, it's a good idea to remove the contact from your list to avoid damaging your sender reputation.

Email marketer from Litmus explains that soft bounces are generally temporary issues, like a server being down or a full inbox. Litmus recommends that you let the system retry delivery, but if soft bounces persist, consider removing the contact to maintain a healthy list.

Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog shares that soft bounces can be caused by a full inbox, a temporary server issue, or the email exceeding size limits. He advises to monitor soft bounce rates and adjust sending practices accordingly, and that frequent soft bounces should lead to removing the contact from the mailing list to protect sender reputation.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that the underlying issue can be that the O365 system was configured to forward to something else - and that something else was using a filter that blocked the message and so sent back to O365 and then it ended up in a loop. If it was a content-based filter, that would explain why only some of the messages bounced - those messages were content blocked and the others weren’t. Mentally she treats mail loops from Outlook as a downstream mail block.

Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, explains that soft bounces can result from various issues like full mailboxes, greylisting, or temporary server outages. She suggests that these are generally temporary problems, and the server will often retry. However, consistent soft bounces from a specific address indicate a more persistent issue, potentially requiring list cleaning to maintain a good sending reputation.

Documentation from Postmark explains that soft bounces are temporary failures like a full inbox or a server issue. Postmark suggests automatically retrying emails that soft bounce but recommends removing contacts who repeatedly soft bounce to maintain good deliverability.

Documentation from SparkPost explains that soft bounces are temporary delivery failures, often due to a full mailbox or temporary server issues. SparkPost's system retries these emails, but recommends that senders monitor their soft bounce rates and remove addresses that persistently soft bounce to preserve sender reputation.

Documentation from Google explains that soft bounces can occur if the recipient's server is temporarily unavailable or their mailbox is full. They suggest retrying the email delivery after some time. However, if the issue persists, it could impact sender reputation, advising to remove the email address from the list.

Documentation from Amazon Web Services explains that soft bounces occur due to temporary issues like a full mailbox or temporary server unavailability. Amazon SES automatically retries sending emails that soft bounce, but repeated soft bounces can negatively impact sender reputation. They recommend monitoring bounce rates and removing persistent soft bounces.

Documentation from MailerQ explains that a soft bounce indicates a temporary issue, such as the recipient's mailbox being full, the server being down, or the message being too large. It advises to retry sending the email later, as the issue might resolve itself. They also indicate that Repeated soft bounces should be treated as hard bounces.