Email marketers know to watch out for soft bounces and hard bounces in their email campaigns. A single bounced email isn’t usually cause for concern. But when they start to add up, it can be signal that deliverability is becoming a problem for your email marketing. What are soft bounces? How do they differ from hard bounces? And how can you prevent them to ensure your entire audience is receiving your sends? Read on to find out.
What is a Soft Bounce?
A soft bounce is a temporary email delivery failure caused by issues like a recipient’s full mailbox, server downtime, or an email exceeding size limits. Unlike hard bounces, soft bounces indicate that the recipient’s email address is valid, and the delivery issue may resolve on its own. These bounces should be monitored, and emails can be resent later. However, if soft bounces persist across multiple campaigns, the address may need to be removed to maintain list quality and sender reputation.
Hard Bounce vs Soft Bounce
A hard bounce occurs when an email fails to deliver permanently due to reasons like an invalid email address, a non-existent domain, or a blocked server. These should be removed from your email list immediately to avoid harming your sender reputation.
Too many hard bounces can damage your IP/Domain reputation, because they’re associated with spammers who are illegitimately guessing at large amounts of email addresses. Soft bounces are less severe than hard bounces.
What Causes Soft Bounces?
Soft bounces are a problem. They show that, even though the intended recipient address is real, a transient delivery failure prevented it from being received. A number of things can trigger them: spam-related concerns, temporary technical issues, or a full inbox. Spam-related concerns can be resolved with good sending practices, such as list cleansing, quality list sources, and engagement segmentation.
Soft bounces can also indicate that, while an email address is still active, is isn’t being used. (Think about it: if an inbox stays full, it’s likely because no one is checking it regularly, or at all). If these addresses are abandoned, it’s important to identify the problem sooner than later. Abandoned email addresses spell trouble for email marketers for several reasons:
- You aren’t reaching the right person with your message
- The email will probably be shut down eventually, turning into a hard bounce (and potentially damaging your reputation)
- Spam monitoring sites, like Spamhaus, will pick up these defunct email addresses and use them as spam traps, causing significant disruptions in your sending and damage to your reputation
How Can I Avoid Them?
Think of bounces as the dust bunnies of your email marketing list. They are an early indication that your list is old and may need to be cleaned. So, if the rate is high, first use a list cleanse. For your convenience, Act-On partners with some list cleansing services such as Webbula and Neverbounce. Webbula may be ideal for removing these bounces and providing a deeper cleanse. Second, you can try to automate the process of removing soft bounces. If an email has been abandoned, emailing this contact will continuously cause a soft bounce.
Continuous soft bouncing shows that the contact will not engage and could transform into a threat. Act-On offers a solution to its customers to automate the clean up process::
- Click Contacts
- Bounces and Opt-Outs
- Hover over the Soft Bounces list, and click “Move to Inactive Soft Bounces after…”
- Select how many bounces a contact should have in the drop down and the click “Save”
Not an Act-On customer? We won’t hold it against you. (But you should give us a try!)
How Many Soft Bounces Should I Allow?
How many soft bounces to allow depends on how often you typically email a contact and the risk level you are willing to take. Here are some guidelines based on your email sending frequency:
- Daily sends – 10-20
- Two sends per week – 4-7
- One send per week – 3
- One send per month – 2-3
These thresholds allow a buffer for temporary issues (e.g. blocklisting) while still removing repeat bounces in a timely manner.
This has been a guest post from Matthew Volkman on our Deliverability Team.
Should I Remove Soft Bounces From the Email List?
As these are temporary email delivery failures caused by issues like full mailboxes or server problems, they don’t need immediate removal. However, if they persist across multiple campaigns, consider removing them to protect your sender reputation. Monitor bounces, retry sending, and use email verification tools to maintain a clean list and improve deliverability.