How to reduce your email bounce rate
To reduce your email bounce rate, verify every list before you send, remove addresses that bounced before, re-check old lists every few months, stop typos at sign-up, and authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Many senders aim to keep hard bounces under 2%.
A bounce is an email that could not be delivered. A few are normal. Many are a warning sign to Gmail, Outlook and other providers, and a high bounce rate pushes even your good emails toward spam.
Hard and soft bounces
- Hard bounce: the address does not exist or never will accept mail. Remove it at once.
- Soft bounce: a temporary problem, such as a full mailbox or a busy server. Try again later, and remove the address if it keeps bouncing.
8 steps that work
- Verify every list before you send. Run new, old and bought lists through a bulk email verifier and only send to Deliverable and Likely valid addresses.
- Remove hard bounces immediately. Never email an address that hard-bounced again.
- Re-check lists every 3 to 6 months. Business addresses decay as people change jobs. A list that was clean last year is not clean today.
- Remove people who left the company. Their old work address bounces, or worse, is still accepted and read by nobody. Domailfix flags people who have left, with public proof.
- Be careful with catch-all domains. Companies that accept every address hide bounces until later. Send to them in smaller batches. See are catch-all emails safe to send to?
- Stop typos at sign-up. Check addresses in your forms as people type, so gmial.com never reaches your list.
- Authenticate your domain. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Check them free with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC checkers.
- Warm up new domains and mailboxes. Start with small daily volumes and grow slowly.
Send to your most recently verified, most engaged contacts first. Good early results protect the rest of the send.
What is a good bounce rate?
There is no single official number, but many senders aim to keep hard bounces under 2%, and treat anything above 5% as a problem to fix before the next send.
Tell your verifier what bounced
If your email tool reports bounces, feed them back. In Domailfix you can connect your sending tool or paste bounced addresses under Sending results in your account, which makes future checks more accurate.
FAQ
What causes a high email bounce rate?
Old lists, bought lists, typos, people who left their company, and sending to catch-all domains without care.
How often should I verify my email list?
Before every large send, and at least every 3 to 6 months for lists you keep.
Do bounces affect deliverability?
Yes. Many bounces tell mailbox providers that you do not look after your list, which can send your emails to spam.