Why Does an Email Bounce?
Encountering a high bounce rate in your monthly email marketing report can be frustrating both for you and your client. Understanding why emails bounce and exploring ways to prevent them is crucial. Let's delve into what an email bounce is, the various types that can occur, and the steps your client can take to minimize them.
What Constitutes a Bounce?
A bounce occurs when an email cannot be delivered. The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of bounced emails by the total number of sent emails. For instance, if 10,000 emails are sent out and five bounce, the resulting bounce rate is 0.05%. While low bounce rates from 0.01% to 1% are considered normal, persistent high bounce rates at 5% or more can lead to deliverability issues. Email servers may label such accounts as untrustworthy, automatically blocking future emails.
Common Types of Email Bounces:
1. Hard Bounce: This happens when an email is undelivered due to an invalid recipient email address, often because the domain name doesn't exist or is unknown. Addresses resulting in hard bounces are typically removed from email platforms to prevent ongoing high bounce rates.
2. Soft Bounce: In this case, an email isn't delivered due to issues with the recipient's email server, even though the email address is valid. This could result from a full inbox, server downtime, or oversized messages.
Other less common types of email bounces include DNS failure, blocked email, auto-response issues, and more.
What Your Client Can Control:
While email bounces are often beyond our control, there are measures your client can take to minimize them:
1. Opt-in Subscribers: Encourage recipients to opt into email marketing campaigns voluntarily. Starting a list by collecting emails at checkout, providing online sign-up forms, or using sales databases helps ensure that individuals are genuinely interested in the business, reducing the likelihood of bounces.
2. Use a Matching "From" Email Address: Utilize a "from" email address with the same domain name as the website to enhance deliverability. Free email addresses from platforms like Gmail or Yahoo may trigger deliverability issues.
3. Authenticate the Email Domain: Verify the email domain to prevent servers from perceiving emails as spam or phishing attempts. Adding DMKIM, DMARC, and SPF records to the domain's DNS records authenticates it and reduces the risk of bouncing.
While complete prevention of email bounces may be challenging, understanding why they occur and implementing these steps can help keep bounce rates low. For further inquiries, feel free to Call SnapMe!