What types of email bounces should be eliminated and which should be monitored?

Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that hard bounces negatively impact sender reputation and should be removed instantly. Soft bounces indicate a temporary problem, warranting monitoring, but consistently soft bouncing addresses must also be removed.

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that bounce handling policies are organisation specific, very subjective and depend on many factors, including volume, resource and technical capabilities.

Email marketer from Reddit suggests monitoring soft bounces for patterns. If a particular domain or user consistently soft bounces, it may be a sign of a larger deliverability issue or a permanently invalid address, in which case removal is necessary.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign emphasizes the importance of regularly cleaning email lists by removing hard bounces to maintain high deliverability rates. Soft bounces may be temporary, but continued soft bounces should prompt removal.

Email marketer from Litmus explains that high bounce rates (especially hard bounces) are a red flag to ISPs. Maintaining a low bounce rate by promptly removing hard bounces is essential for positive sender reputation and consistent deliverability.

Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that hard bounces should be removed immediately to protect sender reputation. Soft bounces should be monitored over time; if a soft bounce persists after several attempts, it should also be removed.

Email marketer from Reddit shares to remove hard bounces immediately because continuing to send emails to these addresses will damage your sender reputation and can lead to your emails being marked as spam.

Email marketer from Neil Patel shares that removing hard bounces is crucial for maintaining a healthy email list and avoiding spam filters. Monitoring soft bounces can help identify deliverability issues and improve overall campaign performance.

Email marketer from HubSpot emphasizes that hard bounces should be removed from your list immediately to protect your sender reputation, while soft bounces should be monitored. If soft bounces persist after multiple attempts, those contacts should also be removed.

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor shares that maintaining a clean email list by removing hard bounces will lead to higher engagement and fewer emails landing in the spam folder. Monitoring soft bounces can help identify deliverability issues.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that generally bounces are reported as “hard” “soft” or “block” and that some ESPs don’t use block, they just use soft or hard.

Expert from Word to the Wise emphasizes the importance of handling hard bounces correctly. Failing to remove hard bounces can lead to deliverability problems as ISPs use bounce rates as a key metric in determining sender reputation.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that processing bounces is critical to maintaining deliverability. They advise that all hard bounces should be immediately unsubscribed and suppressed. Soft bounces should be retried a limited number of times, and then also suppressed if they persist.

Documentation from RFC defines SMTP error codes. Codes in the 5xx range indicate permanent errors which necessitate removing the email from your list, while 4xx codes indicate transient errors that may be retried.

Documentation from Mailchimp explains that a hard bounce indicates a permanent reason an email cannot be delivered, such as a nonexistent address or blocked domain. A soft bounce indicates a temporary issue, like a full inbox or server problem. Hard bounces should be immediately removed from your list, while soft bounces can be monitored and retried.

Documentation from SparkPost explains that 5xx errors are permanent failures that warrant immediate removal, while 4xx errors are often temporary and can be retried, with monitoring. Specific codes (e.g., 550, 552) provide more granularity for bounce categorization.

Documentation from AWS explains that to maintain a good sender reputation, you should remove hard bounces (permanent failures) from your mailing list immediately. Soft bounces (temporary delivery failures) can be retried a few times, but if they persist, remove those addresses as well.