Have you ever sent an email marketing campaign and felt frustrated when many of your emails didn’t reach their recipients? If so, you’ve probably encountered a bounce. But what is bounce? How does it impact your email marketing strategy? In this article, I’ll explain what bounce means, the different types, how to avoid and reduce them, and how to monitor and analyze your results. Let’s dive in!
What does bounce mean?
The term “bounce” in English means “to bounce” or “to reject.” In the context of email marketing, bounce refers to an email that was sent but not delivered to the recipient for some reason.
In other words, the email “bounced” or was “rejected” by the recipient’s email server and returned to the sender with an error message.
Bounce is a common and unwanted issue in email marketing, as it lowers your delivery rate, open rate, and conversion rate. Moreover, it can harm your reputation as a sender and increase the chances of your emails being flagged as spam by email providers.
What are the types of Bounce?
There are two main types of bounce: hard bounce and soft bounce. Each has different characteristics and causes, and they require different actions to resolve.
Hard Bounce
A hard bounce is the most severe type of bounce, as it means the email you sent has no chance of being delivered to the recipient, even if you try to resend it.
Hard bounces occur when the recipient’s email address is invalid, non-existent, or deactivated. For example, this happens if you send an email to an address that was typed incorrectly, deleted by the user, or blocked by the email provider.
This is a sign that your contact list is outdated or that you don’t have permission to send emails to those contacts. Therefore, it’s crucial to remove the addresses that caused hard bounces from your list and only send emails to contacts who voluntarily signed up through your website or landing page.
Soft Bounce
A soft bounce is a less severe type of bounce, as it means the email you sent has some chance of being delivered if you try again later.
Soft bounces occur when the email encounters a temporary issue with the recipient’s email server or the email itself. For example, this could happen if the recipient’s email server is down, if their inbox is full, or if the email you sent is too large or contains a suspicious attachment.
How to avoid and reduce Bounce?
Bounce is a factor that can compromise the success of your email marketing campaigns, but fortunately, there are some best practices you can adopt to avoid and reduce it. Here are a few:
- Keep your contact list updated and segmented: Avoid sending emails to invalid, inactive addresses, or contacts that are unrelated to your business. Use email validation tools, regularly clean your list, and segment your contacts based on their profile, interests, and behavior. For this, you can rely on tools like Easy Email Verification.
- Obtain permission to send emails: Don’t buy email lists or send emails to people who haven’t subscribed through your website or landing page. Use the double opt-in method, which involves sending a confirmation email to the user after they sign up for your list, to ensure they genuinely want to receive your emails.
- Optimize your email for different devices and email providers: Ensure that your email has a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes and is compatible with major email providers, such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc. Use email testing tools like Litmus or Email on Acid to check how your email displays across various devices and providers.
- Maintain a good sender reputation: Avoid having your emails marked as spam by email providers or the recipients themselves. To do this, follow email marketing best practices, such as using a custom domain, personalizing your emails, sending relevant and high-quality content, respecting the sending frequency and timing, and offering an unsubscribe option.
How to monitor and analyze Bounce?
Bounce is one of the key metrics you should track and analyze in your email marketing efforts, as it reflects the quality and efficiency of your campaigns.
To monitor and analyze bounce, you can use email marketing tools like Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, or RD Station, which offer detailed reports on your email performance, including bounce rate.
The bounce rate is the percentage of sent emails that were not delivered to recipients. It can be calculated as follows:
Bounce Rate = (number of bounced emails / number of emails sent) x 100
For example, if you sent 1,000 emails and 50 of them bounced, your bounce rate would be 5%.
There isn’t a universally ideal bounce rate, as it can vary depending on the industry, type of email, and campaign goals. However, generally speaking, a bounce rate below 2% is considered good, a bounce rate between 2% and 5% is considered average, and a bounce rate above 5% is considered poor.
When analyzing your bounce rate, it’s important to also look at the type of bounce, the reason for the bounce, and its origin. This way, you can identify the causes of the issue and take the necessary steps to fix it.
Conclusion
Bounce occurs when an email sent fails to reach the recipient for some reason. It can be classified as either a hard bounce or a soft bounce, depending on the severity and how the issue can be resolved.
Bounce negatively impacts the performance and reputation of your email marketing campaigns, so it’s crucial to avoid and reduce bounce by following email marketing best practices.
Additionally, it’s essential to monitor and analyze bounce using email marketing tools, and to calculate and interpret your bounce rate to assess the quality and effectiveness of your campaigns.
I hope this article has clarified what bounce means in email marketing and helped you improve your email marketing strategies. If you enjoyed this article, feel free to share it with your friends and leave a comment below. Thanks for reading, and see you next time! 👋
