Introduction on Bounced Email
Emails are quick to send, feel personal and don’t take much effort – write your text and press ‘Send’. However, some emails don’t make it to their destination. Let’s explore what you can do with bounced email and methods to prevent this from happening.
The potential uses for email are nearly endless. It’s vital for maintaining important friendships and work relationships alike. Companies depend on emails for pretty much everything,
- Billing info like invoices or updates about deliveries
- Reminders for meetings
- Deals and adverts about sales.
But remember, there’s one big thing an email has to achieve: it needs to get to the person meant to read it. If your message doesn’t arrive, all you’ve done is lose time and possibly money, too. When emails bounce, it does not fit the channel’s goal.
What is a bounced email?
A bounced email occurs when an email server tries to send a message, but it comes back without being delivered. The sender gets an automatic bounce message explaining why the delivery failed. There are two kinds of bounces: hard bounces for permanent errors and soft bounces for temporary problems with the receiver’s server. myEmailVerifier offers a free email bounce rate calculator to know the email bounce rate for your campaign.
Are you aware that over 3.9 billion people across the globe use email? It’s a key form of communication thanks to its massive reach. Plus, 92% of online adults engage with email. 61% of them do it every single day, showing just how popular it is.
What does it mean about ‘bounced email’?
If your email gets bounced, that means the recipient’s server said no to your message, so it didn’t get to who you meant to send it. This could happen if the email address doesn’t exist, the inbox is full, their server has some problems right now, or they think there might be something wrong with what you’re sending or who you are.
Do I need to worry about a bounced email?
Bounced email may not seem like much, but they can really affect how people see you as a sender. Internet service providers watch bounced rates cause they want to figure out who might be sending spam.
Avoiding Spam Labels to steer clear of the spammer label, aim to maintain your email bounce rate under 2%. This requires carefully sending messages solely to active, valid email addresses.
Why do bounced email happen?
There are a few reasons why your email didn’t go through, and figuring out the exact cause can be tough.
Let’s look at some common issues for facing bounced email
The email address is invalid.
Either you’ve mistyped the email address, or the person you’re trying to contact gave you the wrong one. For instance, instead of typing [email protected], you entered maxx @. Alternatively, it could be Max who made a mistake when providing his email.
Full mailbox
A full mailbox can also result in bounced email. This usually happens if someone hasn’t cleared their emails. They might not have looked at their inbox for a while, allowing messages to accumulate. Their inbox eventually fills up and has no space left for new emails.
Message – too large
If your message doesn’t go through due to its size, this may be because it contains a huge video or many high-quality images. Your email was simply larger than what the recipient’s email service could handle.
You have a low sender reputation.
The recipient’s email server blocked the email. It’s common when you frequently send emails that appear like spam or when you’re sending them to someone who has marked your address as unwanted.
Spelling and punctuation errors
Mistakes in spelling and using commas, periods, or other punctuation incorrectly can mess up your whole email. These errors make it hard for the recipient’s server to understand and deliver your mail correctly.
The server is down
If the receiving email server is not working properly, it won’t process any incoming mail. You’ll just have to wait until the issue with the server is fixed before trying again.
Bounced emails and blocks
At times, your email can hit a wall, maybe it’s blocked or just rebounds. When someone on the other end decides to block you, chances are high that you’ll see that bounce right back at you.
On a blocklist
It’s easy to get on a blocklist. Sometimes, just by sending an email to what’s known as honeypots. These email addresses are traps set for spam senders. If you email one, even without sending spam, you might find yourself on a block list. This could cause your emails to be returned to you.
You haven’t set up DMARC.
Google and Yahoo made some changes on February 1, 2024, with new rules for bulk email senders. DMARC is short for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting &. Conformance. Not having DMARC in place can lead to your emails being bounced back or sent straight to the spam folder.
You ran into a DNS failure.
A DNS issue short for Domain Name System failure. An email might not reach its destination and get sent back to you, or ‘bounce.’ This sometimes happens when DNS servers go down for a bit. Server problems at the data center are usually behind this, but even if it’s temporary, your email can still bounce.
You emailed a one-time address.
People often avoid sharing their actual contact details and opt for short-lived email addresses instead. You might know these as burner emails found via temporary emails.
Such email accounts expire quickly sometimes within hours or just a day. Emails sent to these addresses won’t stick. They’ll bounce back to you. So, it’s a smart move to keep those disposable emails away from your list. After all, if someone’s hiding behind a fake address, chances are slim you’ll have any real conversation or decent business dealings with them.
Things to remember about bounced email
Starting out and swamped by the details on bounced email? Don’t sweat it! Here’s what you need to know:
Bounced email that don’t make it to their intended inboxes. You’ll encounter two kinds, hard and soft bounces.
Hard bounces mean there’s no way the email will get through, often because the email address doesn’t exist. Soft bounces, though, are just a temporary setback caused by problems like a full inbox.
If your emails keep bouncing, that can hurt your email campaigns and damage how reliable you look, messing up both your sender score and chances of future emails being delivered
Want fewer bounces? Use a solid email service provider like myEmailVerifier, check if your email list is correct now and then. split up your audience better, and tweak your emails so they’re more engaging,
Sure, you can’t stop all bounces from happening but hey! you can definitely keep them as low as possible to boost what you get out of your email marketing efforts.
If you’re overwhelmed by all the tips on avoiding bounces, focus on these takeaways.
We trust this piece has been helpful. For extra insight on dodging email bounces, peek at how email bounce rates affect your email marketing ROI .