It's vital to grasp the distinctions between hard bounces, soft bounces, and the unique concept of account level bounce to effectively manage your subscriber list and uphold your sender reputation.
Hard Bounce
A hard bounce denotes an email that fails to deliver permanently. This can occur due to reasons such as,
Fake email address
Non-existent email address
Invalid email address (check for typos or spaces)
Email blocked by recipient's server
Domain authentication is strongly advised, especially for subscribers from domains with stringent spam filter settings.
Subscribers with hard bounces are automatically removed from your active list to protect your sender reputation. You can identify these subscribers on the Subscribers page under the All subscribers tab by selecting to display Bounced subscribers.
Soft Bounce
On the other hand, a soft bounce refers to an email that experiences temporary delivery failure.
Mailbox is full
Message is too large
Server timed out
Subscribers who soft bounce remain in your active list as the issue is transient. However, if a subscriber soft bounces three times consecutively, it transitions into a hard bounce, resulting in their removal from the active list.
Account Level Bounce
Account level bounce is a specific scenario where a subscriber soft bounces on three different days, leading to their classification as a hard bounce. Once this occurs, the contact is automatically eliminated from your active subscribers list and flagged as an account level bounce in the platform.
For further insights into managing bounce types and enhancing email marketing success rates, you can visit our blog.