


Manage Your Email Bounce: Soft and Hard Bounce

Let’s go back to basics and define a term that has a profound impact on email delivery rates, a term that has always been a little confusing for email marketers. The term is Email bounce back. So what is the difference between a hard bounce and soft bounce?

Our attitude toward soft bounce is slightly different. We see soft bounce more as limitations or short-term problems. These restrictions should not be placed on the Prohibited Send list. However, hard bounce (that is, invalid email addresses and unsuccessful mail bounces) must be placed on the banned list. Keep reading and we will tell you why.

Definition of Email Bounce

A bounce of mail means that your mail cannot be delivered. When the message bounces back, the sender usually receives an email from the system automatically indicating that the delivery failed. Mail delivery failures caused by a variety of reasons (as explained in more detail below) on the recipient’s mail server are generally unsuccessful.

mail bounce

Pop up the content of the prompt message

Usually, the system automatically sends you a bounce message that can effectively help you find out why the mail delivery failed. A bounce message includes the following:

  • Time and date when the message is bounced back
  • The server that bounced back this message
  • RFC code and the reason for the bounce
  • According to the RFC file, the hard bullet is described by a three-digit code starting with 5, and the soft bullet is a three-digit code starting with 4. But not all ISPs (Internet Service Providers, Internet Service Providers) have followed these codes, so there are some exceptions to this rule

You will generally receive two types of bounces: one is a soft bounce (restricted) and the other is a hard bounce.

Soft Bounce

A soft bounce means that the email address is valid and the mail arrives at the recipient’s mailbox server. But the mail was bounced back for the following reasons:

  • The mailbox is full (the user has exceeded the quota for the mailbox)
  • The server has collapsed
  • The message is too large to enter the other party’s inbox

Hard Bounce

Hard bounce refers to a message permanently rejected, resulting in nothing more than playing hard for two reasons:

  • Email address is invalid
  • Email address does not exist

We will add the address of the hard bomb to the banned list. This means that even if you send mail to these email addresses through our platform. we will not attempt to deliver to these addresses because we know that this is harmless. Continued attempts to deliver mail to a known bad address can damage your reputation in the recipient, so we prevent this from happening.

Reduce Your Mail Bounce Rate

The best way to reduce the bounce rate of your mail is to follow some crucial methods of mail delivery. Including the following points:

email bounce

Keep your list clean: Regularly clean up invalid addresses and non-response messages in your list (Translator’s Note: such as [email protected], which specifies a specific person’s mailbox). High rebound rates can affect your sender’s reputation. So keeping your list clean can improve your mail arrival rate in the long run.

Use two-way confirmation: When the user subscribes to and enters your subscription list. A confirmation email is sent to the user. This way you can guarantee that your users’ emails are not only valid, but they are also happy to receive your emails.

Monitor your mail delivery: You can track your mail arrival rate by keeping a close eye on your bounce rate and your response rate. Through daily monitoring, you can find them before potential failures occur or before they have a huge impact.
