How to Handle Hard Bounces Like a Pro in Email Marketing

Welcome to the world of email marketing! It can be a magical place where you engage with an audience personally and convert them into long-lasting clients.

In fact, email marketing has become the flagship practice for businesses worldwide, offering a cost-effective way to communicate with subscribers and customers. However, the effectiveness of any email marketing campaign rests on its ability to reach its intended targets–and sometimes subscribers receive emails that “bounce back.” This kind of bounce, a hard bounce, can be a headache for email marketers, as it indicates severe issues with their campaigns.

So, what exactly is a hard bounce in email marketing?

You’re about to find out. We’ll cover what a hard bounce is, what causes it, and how to avoid it. Let’s dive in!

What Is Bounce Rate?

Before we dig deeper, let’s lay the foundation. As a business owner or marketer, understanding your email newsletter campaign is vital to knowing whether you’re meeting your business goals. To gain that understanding, you need to review your email marketing metrics to determine your campaign's performance.

One of the key email marketing metrics is your bounce rate, which measures how many emails were actually delivered. The bounce rate formula is calculated by taking the total number of emails bounced and dividing it by the total number of emails sent. Then, multiply it by 100 for the percentage.

Emails Bounced / Total Emails Sent X 100 = Bounce Rate

What Is A Hard Bounce in Email Marketing?

Now that you understand how to calculate bounce rate–and why it’s important to do so–it’s time to talk about what a hard bounce is.

A hard bounce refers to an email returned to the sender (you) by the recipient's email server, indicating that the email could not be delivered. A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure, meaning resending the email cannot solve the problem. It occurs when the recipient's email address has either been deactivated, doesn't exist, or the email server has rejected the message.

What Should I Do With Hard Bounce Emails?

When you discover these hard bounce email addresses, remove them from your email list immediately.

Internet service providers use bounce rates to determine the sender’s email reputation. A high bounce rate will lower your sender reputation, meaning you’re more likely to end up in the dreaded spam folder. If you want a continuous, smooth delivery, you must ensure your reputation isn’t hindered!

What Is An Example of A Hard Bounce Email?

A hard bounce can happen for several reasons, including incorrect syntax, invalid email addresses, or the recipient's email server blocking the message. For example, if a subscriber has changed their email address, and the sender did not update their email list with the new address, it would result in a hard bounce because the original email address is no longer active.

Another reason your email may not be delivered is that the email address you are sending to is an unknown or unidentified alias, so the email cannot be returned. This could happen if you accidentally typed in the wrong email address, or your subscriber input an incorrect email address upon signing up for your newsletter.

What Is Hard Bounce Vs Soft Bounce In Email Marketing?

There are two types of bounces: “hard” bounces and “soft” bounces.

Soft bounces result from a temporary problem with a valid email address, like a full inbox or a problem with the recipient’s server. The recipient’s server may deliver the email once the issue has been resolved, or you can try to resend your email newsletter again.

While a hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure, a soft bounce is temporary. A soft bounce happens when an email address exists but cannot receive messages at that time. This can occur when the recipient's email inbox is full, the recipient's server has gone down, or the email message exceeds the server's size limit. A soft bounce can be resolved by sending the email campaign again later.

Other examples of soft bounces would be if the mailbox you’re sending to is not configured correctly, is inactive, or the email message is blocked due to content. All these are easily fixable, which allows you to resend your email and have it reach your target audience’s inbox.

What Causes Hard Bounce In Email Marketing?

Several factors can contribute to hard bounces, including invalid addresses or email domains needing more presence. Email servers will also reject messages that contain spam trigger words or phrases. Additionally, sending too many emails too fast, or not removing unsubscribed emails from your list, can contribute to hard bounces.

If you’re a business that is just starting, make sure that you warm up your email domain before sending out marketing campaigns. This will give your domain more presence and prevent future email deliverability issues.

Like any well-nurtured business, product, or service, following the best practices now will help set your business up for success in the future. If you do not take the time to warm up your domain, and start sending email marketing too quickly, you’ll end up in the spam folders–or, worse yet, on the internet service providers’ (ISPs) naughty list. Take the time to follow email deliverability best practices to ensure that your email will always reach your audiences.

Let’s (Not) Bounce

As an email marketer, your primary focus is the content you send to your audience. Ensure the content is visually appealing and worded correctly so your content won’t be triggered as spam. ISPs are searching for spam 24/7–so, to ensure your email marketing never misses its target, always review your content to ensure you’re not breaking any rules which would result in a bounce.

Additionally, always do your due diligence and clean up your email mailing list. Remove any email address that bounce back–if you don’t, and you continue to send emails to those addresses, it will hurt your email sender reputation.

Hard bounces can devastate your email marketing campaign, reducing deliverability rates and producing a lower return on investment. Regularly cleaning up your email list can drastically reduce the risk of hard bounces by ensuring that your campaigns only get sent to valid email addresses.

Remember, a successful email marketing campaign is about timing, relevance, and engagement. Ensure you’re giving your email subscribers the right kind of content, but also ensure that your email campaigns don’t fall victim to hard bounces.

If you’re looking for an email service provider to help your content reach the next level–and your audience’s inboxes–beehiiv is your platform! Get started today to see how beehiiv’s tools can improve your email deliverability.