Why are Gmail bounce rates suddenly increasing?
Summary
What email marketers say14Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackExchange suggests checking the sender's domain reputation and ensuring proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) are in place, as Gmail often tightens its security measures to combat spam.
Email marketer from Reddit highlights the importance of list segmentation. Sending irrelevant emails to subscribers can lead to low engagement and increased spam complaints, ultimately impacting your sender reputation and increasing bounce rates.
Email marketer from MessageBird (formerly SparkPost) shares that if you recently changed your sending infrastructure, it can lead to a sudden increase in bounces as Gmail needs to learn the new sending patterns and establish trust.
Email marketer from Mailchimp shares that sudden increases in bounces might indicate a problem with your email list hygiene. They recommend regularly cleaning your list to remove invalid or inactive addresses.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce explains that sending emails to spam traps will seriously damage your sender reputation and increase bounce rates. Implement a double opt-in process and regularly clean your email list to avoid hitting spam traps.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests that a sudden increase in Gmail bounces could be due to changes in Gmail's spam filtering algorithms, especially if the sender's reputation has recently been affected by low engagement or spam complaints.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum notes that a common cause is a sudden spike in sending volume without properly warming up the IP address, leading Gmail to flag the emails as potentially unwanted.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares they are seeing it in a limited scope and early patterns indicate affected domains were recently DKIM replay victims.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that the greatest impact is against forwarded mail.
Email marketer from SendGrid explains that changes in email content can trigger spam filters, leading to higher bounce rates. Review your recent email templates and avoid using spam trigger words or suspicious links.
Email marketer from Hubspot suggests that if your sender reputation has declined recently, your email may be more likely to be marked as spam. Focus on improving engagement metrics like open rates and click-through rates.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that they are seeing similar issues, with bounce rates significantly higher than normal.
Email marketer from Litmus explains that poor email design and rendering issues can lead to low engagement and increased spam complaints. Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly and render correctly across different email clients.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares an example of a bounce message they are seeing: 550-5.7.1 [xx.xx.xx.xx] Our system has detected that this message is likely unsolicited mail.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that a number of factors are known to negatively impact deliverability and potentially increase bounces including authentication issues, poor list hygiene, sending irrelevant content, and lacking engagement.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that the way to avoid the Gmail bulk folder to improve bounce rates is based on list hygiene, authentication, content, sending practices, infrastructure, and monitoring.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that bounces, especially hard bounces, are affected by getting blocklisted by a major RBL. She advises checking your sending IPs and domains against popular blocklists.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from RFC Project highlights that temporary delivery failures (soft bounces) can occur due to temporary server issues or greylisting, while permanent failures (hard bounces) often indicate invalid email addresses or policy rejections. Reviewing bounce codes is critical.
Documentation from MXToolbox explains that blacklisting can cause a surge in bounces. Use MXToolbox to check if your domain or IP is listed on any major blacklists and take steps to delist if necessary.
Documentation from Validity (formerly Return Path) states that domain authentication problems can cause increased bounces - check your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are set up correctly, and are not failing when tested.
Documentation from DMARC.org emphasizes that implementing DMARC helps protect your domain from email spoofing and phishing attacks, which can improve your sender reputation and reduce bounce rates. They suggest setting up a DMARC policy to monitor and enforce email authentication.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools states that increased bounces can be due to exceeding sending limits, poor sender reputation, high spam complaint rates, or issues with email authentication. Google recommends monitoring these metrics in Postmaster Tools.