What is a good bounce rate percentage to aim for in email marketing?
Summary
What email marketers say8Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Constant Contact answers that generally, you should aim for a bounce rate below 2%. Constant Contact recommends regular list cleaning to keep your bounce rate low.
Email marketer from Sendinblue explains that keeping your bounce rate below 2% is a good practice. Bounce rates that surpass this benchmark can signal deliverability problems and damage your sender score. They recommend employing double opt-in to ensure subscribers are genuinely interested in receiving your emails.
Email marketer from HubSpot explains that a bounce rate around 2% is considered acceptable. A high bounce rate could be a sign of outdated email lists, invalid email addresses, or problems with your email sending practices.
Email marketer from EmailOversight explains that a good email bounce rate should be less than 3%. If you're seeing a bounce rate above this, it is an indication to start scrubbing and cleaning your email lists.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign says that generally, you should aim for a bounce rate of less than 2%. A high bounce rate indicates that a significant portion of your emails aren't reaching their intended recipients, which can hurt your sender reputation.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor explains that a good bounce rate should be below 2%. Exceeding this indicates deliverability issues. They suggest regularly cleaning your email list to remove inactive or invalid addresses to maintain a healthy bounce rate.
Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that bounce rate is a important metric to track and bounce rates should be below 3%. Neil recommends cleaning email lists regularly, and following general authentication methods to reduce bounce rate.
Email marketer from Litmus shares that aiming for a bounce rate under 2% is a generally accepted best practice. High bounce rates can negatively impact your sender reputation and deliverability.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that aiming for below 3% hard bounce rate is preferable to indicate good list hygiene, and exceeding that is likely to cause issues.
Expert from Email Geeks mentions using a 5% threshold for all bounces (hard + soft) on any given campaign, but it ended up being more like 2% for hard bounces and 5% overall.
Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, shares that aiming for a bounce rate under 2% is generally a good practice. Higher bounce rates may indicate problems with list hygiene or sending practices.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that hard bounces are not necessarily bad if monitored. Suggests caution above 2-3%, but senders with good list hygiene should be well below that. The classification of bounces (blocks vs hard bounces) depends on the ESP.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that bounce rates are not explicitly mentioned in Google's email sender requirements and should be used internally to assess client compliance with list hygiene practices.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Mailchimp shares that bounce rates should ideally be under 3%. Higher bounce rates can negatively impact sender reputation. Mailchimp recommends regularly reviewing bounce data to identify and remove problematic email addresses from your list.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that bounce rates should be kept as low as possible, ideally below 5%. Higher bounce rates can lead to deliverability issues, as ISPs may view your sending practices as suspicious. They advise regularly cleaning your email lists and segmenting your audience to send more targeted content.
Documentation from Google explains that bounce rates are an important metric and sender should aim for a bounce rate below 2%. Google suggests checking the reputation of your domain using Google Postmaster Tools and improve list hygiene to keep your bounce rate low.
Documentation from Postmark explains that a good target is to keep your bounce rate below 5%. If your bounce rate is higher, it is an indication to review your sending practices and list hygiene.