Why am I experiencing a higher soft bounce rate for Gmail and iCloud email addresses?

Email marketer from Mailjet advises checking email content, sender reputation, and authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to reduce soft bounces. They also suggest segmenting your email list and sending to engaged subscribers.

Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests diving into bounce reasons, especially with Gmail/GSuite. Provides examples of Google bounce messages indicating over quota or rate limiting. For iCloud, issues can also be situational, including rate limiting. Provides example bounces for iCloud.

Email marketer from ActiveCampaign suggests that cleaning your email list can decrease the likelihood of soft bounces. Removing unengaged or inactive contacts ensures you are only sending to users who want to receive your emails.

Email marketer from HubSpot shares that sender reputation, authentication, and content quality affect deliverability. Poor sender reputation or spammy content can lead to more bounces, including soft bounces, as ISPs become more cautious.

Email marketer from Reddit shares that increased soft bounces on Gmail/iCloud may be due to stricter spam filtering. They recommend checking SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records and ensuring content isn't triggering spam filters.

Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests that an increase in soft bounces could be due to increased sending to lapsed subscribers.

Email marketer from StackOverflow points out that Gmail sometimes uses greylisting (temporarily rejecting emails from unknown senders) which causes soft bounces. Retrying the message later often succeeds.

Email marketer from Litmus contrasts hard and soft bounces. Hard bounces mean the email address is invalid. Soft bounces are temporary and could be due to server issues or full mailboxes. High soft bounce rates can negatively impact deliverability.

Email marketer from Email on Acid says that to improve deliverability, regularly clean your email list of inactive or invalid addresses, as sending to these addresses can harm your sender reputation, contributing to more soft bounces.

Email marketer from SendGrid explains that a soft bounce means the email server accepted the message, but it bounced back because the mailbox was full, the server was down, or the message was too large. This can indicate a temporary issue.

Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog shares that soft bounces can indicate problems with list hygiene, server reputation, or content. He recommends cleaning your email list regularly and monitoring your sender reputation.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that Gmail's throttling can cause temporary failures (soft bounces). Factors include IP reputation, user engagement, and sending volume. Improving these factors can reduce throttling.

Expert from Word to the Wise recommends proper bounce processing to maintain a clean email list. Consistently removing bouncing addresses will help improve sender reputation and decrease both hard and soft bounces in the long run.

Expert from Spam Resource explains that low deliverability could be due to multiple factors. They suggest checking sender reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), list hygiene, and the content of your emails. Focusing on these can reduce soft bounces and improve overall deliverability rates.

Documentation from Apple Support indicates that iCloud email servers may temporarily reject messages due to high volume or suspected spam activity. They advise senders to ensure proper authentication and avoid sending unsolicited emails.

Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that temporary issues like recipient server outages or full mailboxes can cause soft bounces. Gmail may also temporarily defer messages from senders with a low reputation.

Documentation from RFC Editor defines SMTP reply codes. The 4xx series of codes indicates temporary failures, such as 'mailbox full' or 'temporary system problem'. This indicates a soft bounce situation, meaning the sender could retry later.

Documentation from SparkPost defines soft bounces as temporary delivery failures, such as 'mailbox full' or 'connection issues'. They suggest monitoring soft bounce rates to identify potential deliverability problems.