Controversial because, despite being quite necessary, it brings with it some particularities that will always cause some questions.
Just a quick reminder: bounce rate, in email marketing, is a metric that determines the number of emails that were not delivered to recipients.
The controversy arises in two ways: when we try to evaluate the impact of bounce rate on campaigns and, of course, when we try to explain it.
When assessing its impact, it is most common for those germany email list responsible for the campaign to simply ignore the bounce rate, “selling” it as something natural that simply happens.
And in the quest to try to explain the reasons why it happens, we can often end up inventing solutions that are much more difficult than they should be.
And controversy arises when no one agrees on why it happens and how to solve it.
Today's article will deal with these two main points. Let's find out more?
What are the types of bounce in emails?
Email marketing has two types of bounce: hard bounce and soft bounce .
In order to start talking about what causes bounce and what are the main ways to combat it, we need to go through these two types first.
Mainly because the reasons that lead to bounce, which we will explore in more detail a little further on, can be explained by its type.
The case of soft bounces is much simpler to understand and even resolve. The case of hard bounces is a little more complicated.
But just to make one point clear before we actually start browsing the types of bounces: having them, of any type, is completely natural in any email marketing strategy.
So natural, in fact, that it is very likely, and even almost guaranteed, that you will never create an email marketing campaign where the bounce will not happen.
In other words, this is a battle you will face forever. All of your email lists will always have a bounce rate. How you deal with this rate is what determines the success of your reduction strategy.
But this is a topic that we will address throughout the text. For now, let's stick with the types of bounce.
Soft bounce
A soft bounce indicates that the email could not be delivered, but that your email provider's server will try to send it to the recipient again.
This can happen for a number of reasons, many of which are completely beyond your control.
It could be that you have exceeded the bandwidth limit of your email server, for example. This could happen due to bugs, lack of payment for the platform, some instability in the system, etc.
It could also be a problem with your recipient's email server. Maybe their inbox is full, maybe the email address is too large and exceeds the limit of your sending tool, etc.
A soft bounce is when something goes wrong but your email tool will keep trying until it works or until it identifies the sending as a hard bounce.
Hard bounce
A hard bounce is when the email cannot be sent and never will be. No matter how hard your tool tries, the email will not be delivered to its recipient with 100% certainty.
The reasons for hard bounces are also quite varied. But they are usually due to emails that were not found.
Someone used a fake email address to download the material, for example. Or they typed a letter incorrectly.
In any case, hard bounce emails need to be eliminated from your list. This is the only way to reduce this rate.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's continue reading and we'll soon present some strategies for dealing with both types of bounce.
All About Bounce Rate: The Ultimate FAQ
We had to take this brief detour because, from now on, the text will talk a lot about these two types of bounce.
But there are still some points that are not related to the type of bounce that are worth getting out of the way before continuing.
These are general questions, many of them with a very simple answer, but which end up going unanswered because many people think that bounce rate is something that cannot be changed, it just happens.
As we have seen, this is real: it really happens and will always happen. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't study it and try to minimize it whenever possible.
So, before we move on, we need to quickly talk about a few things about bounce rate. Keep reading:
What are the main causes of email bounces?
As we have seen throughout the text, there are several reasons that lead to bounce. Most of them are related to the unavailability of the recipient's email.
When this unavailability is temporary, we have soft bounces. The main reasons for this include:
Full email box;
Privacy settings;
Temporary server unavailability;
Email temporarily inactive due to vacation;
Email temporarily inactive for any reason.
Soft bounces are common in email marketing, but they usually lead to a hard bounce in the future. It is very rare to find a soft bounce where after a few attempts the email was actually delivered.
Only in cases of general unavailability. That day Gmail went down for everyone in a certain region, for example.
Hard bounces happen for more obvious reasons:
Email completely disabled;
Email list without interaction for a long time;
You have been blocked by the recipient;
The lead left a fake email;
The lead made a mistake when entering the email;
The email address is too long for the server to understand;
The size of the sent email exceeds the recipient's settings;
Among other points.
Do stopped lists cause bounce?
Let's say you have an email list that has been sitting idle for a while — a whole year, to be exact.
This list has around 5,000 registered people, all generated with a lot of effort and without any emails purchased from cold lists — which is actually a black hat practice for Google.
But you have a good list, which you have achieved with a lot of work and care. The problem is that it is not working. Could this cause a bounce? Yes!
But not for the reasons you might think. Your list is still valid and just because it’s not active won’t increase your bounce rate.
What will increase the bounce rate in this case is the number of inactive emails on this list because it is old.
Of these 5,000 people, 350 have changed their email addresses or no longer have access to them. This may seem unrealistic, but in B2B this is very common. People who change jobs also change their professional email addresses.
Due to this high hard bounce rate, your next campaigns may experience reduced performance.
You won't be blocked or banned by the recipients' email servers, but deliveries will be compromised, generating more bounces and increasing the problem.