Bounces happen when your email can't reach the recipient's inbox and is instead returned to the sender. There are two different types of bounces, hard and soft.
Soft bounces
A soft bounce is a temporary problem that can be resolved. The email could, in theory, reach the inbox, but for some reason, it didn't. Some common reasons for soft bounces are:
The recipient's inbox is full
The email size is too large to be delivered
The recipient's email server is offline
The recipient's email server is unreachable because of technical issues
The recipient's email server marks your email as spam. This is called spam notification bounce, and you can read more about actions and precautions regarding this further down.
MarketHype will try to send an email seven times before it's considered a soft bounce. After that, we will continue to send new emails to the recipient, but if seven soft bounces are registered on that address, it will get flagged, and no further emails will be sent to the recipient.
Hard bounces
A hard bounce is a permanent problem. This means that the email will not be received by the recipient. Some reasons for hard bounces are:
The recipient's email domain does not exist
The recipient's email does not exist
When a hard bounce has been registered on an address, MarketHype will flag that address, and no further emails will be sent to the recipient.
MarketHype and bounce precaution
MarketHype takes some precautions to keep your bounce rate low. However, if it were to reach 5%, you would receive a warning in MarketHype and get blocked from sending further emails. Please contact us if that happens so that we can investigate what led to the high bounce rate and resolve the issue.
Spam notification bounces
As mentioned earlier, a spam notification bounce is when a mail server marks your email as spam and stops your email from reaching the inbox. This counts as a soft bounce but can cause a high bounce rate on your dispatch since the bounce is registered individually for each recipient involved.
If you get blocked from sending emails, and the main reason is that a mail server marked your email as spam, we recommend the following actions once your email account has been activated again:
Divide your next email dispatch
To prevent your spam notification rate from remaining at such a high level, we recommend dividing your next email into smaller recipient batches, allowing the email servers to accept your email. Start with only a few thousand recipients and ensure that the email goes out well and gets a low bounce rate. If everything looks good, you can continue with the next batch of recipients.
If everything runs smoothly, you can start to increase the number of recipients for your next email whilst keeping an eye on the bounce rate. Contact us if any of your emails get a high bounce rate, and we will help you investigate the cause.
ℹ️ Dividing your recipients into smaller batches can be done by using the MarketHype filter and, for example, base the recipients for each dispatch on age spans or gender.
If you need help dividing the email based on your needs, contact us, and we will be happy to assist you.
Get Google Postmaster Tools
We recommend that you get Postmaster Tools to see statistics and get a better understanding of your domain's reputation, to avoid spam notifications in the future.
Prevent spam notifications
There are a few things you can think about to prevent your email from getting a spam notification; here are some examples:
Don't resend the same email to bounced recipients
It is important that you don't try to resend the same email to those that bounced since this can hurt your domain's reputation and ''irritate'' the mail server that previously marked your mail as spam.
As mentioned earlier, spam notifications count as a soft bounce, so the recipients that bounced due to a spam notification will receive the next email you make.
If you notice that the bounce number for a sent email is higher than usual, contact us, and we will look into what could have caused the high rate.
Warm up new sender profiles - limit the number of recipients
If you start sending emails from a new domain, we recommend keeping a low profile for the first dispatch by keeping the number of recipients on a lower level. This can be done by using the MarketHype filter and dividing the first email into smaller recipient batches. This will not be necessary every time, only for the first time using a new domain.
If you need help dividing the email based on your needs, contact us, and we will be happy to assist you.
Keep an eye on your email size
Some clients will flag your email as spam if it's over 100 KB. MarketHype has a size indicator in the Review and sends dialog, warning you when your email reaches 95 KB, leaving some room for resolved merge tags.
Avoid all image emails
Avoid sending emails with mostly or only images since this is a common type of email to get flagged as spam. Use the text block for body text instead of importing an image, for example.
Avoid using unique fonts
Using big capitals and unusual fonts can make your email look unprofessional. Some email clients only accept web-safe fonts, which might make them mark your email as spam when using other fonts. Read more about using fonts in your email here.