In this digital era, email marketing is part and parcel of almost every business. A good email marketing means your message should reach in the user’s inbox without any issues.
If the users do not receive your emails, it means they have bounced back.
Email bounce back
If your emails are not delivered to the intended recipient, it shows there are some issues in your email campaign. Those issues have resulted in emails not being delivered to the recipient. This is known as email bounce back.
Email bounce message
An email bounce back message notifies the sender that the recipient’s server is unable to receive the message, the email address is invalid, or it has been suspended. An email bounce message also notifies about the issue and recommendations to fix that issue.
It usually states; Delivery to the recipient failed because:
- The email account doesn’t exist.
- The email address is invalid
- There are unnecessary spaces in the address
Types of email bounce backs
There are two types of email bounce backs: Soft bounce and the hard bounce. A hard bounce occurs because the email address or the domain name doesn’t exist anymore. These are permanent problems and can’t be solved. The soft bounce occurs due to issues like full inbox, temporary unavailability or the auto-responders. You can read more about the types of email bounce backs.
Email Bounce rate
It is the total number of sent emails divided by the delivered minus undelivered emails. Less bounce rate means you are running a good campaign while a high bounce rate indicates problems in your campaign.
An acceptable bounce rate varies from industry to industry. However, if your bounce rate is less than 10%, it means most of your emails are being delivered.
You can decrease the email bounce rate by making sure you are using a good email list. What qualifies for a good email list?
An email list consisting of active, valid, and spam-free email addresses is a good email list.
Reasons for a high bounce rate
Following are some reasons of high bounce rate:
- Email box was full.
- Email doesn’t exist.
- The receivers server is temporarily unavailable.
- The user has set the email box to auto-reply.
- The receiver’s server blocked your message. Mostly schools and government email addresses have restrictions for incoming and outgoing messages.
A high bounce rate damages your reputation badly. Your IP and domain name can get into a blacklist. Your emails will land in the spam folder. Your email provider can even block you from sending emails.
You can use email verifier to make sure you don’t face such issues in your campaign.
6 Ways to reduce email bounce backs
You can reduce the email bounce back by identifying the issue. Once the issue is found, you can fix that to ensure fewer bounce backs.
Following are 6 proven ways to ensure your email campaign gets less bounce rate:
1) Make a good lead generation form
The first step of email marketing is to build a contact list. For this purpose, you need to create sign-up or lead generation forms. A web-based sign-up form helps you avoid human errors and typos.
To reduce the spam, you can implement the CAPTCHA in your sign up form. It will save your list from bots and will help you get a good quality list.
2) Use a double opt-in system
Whenever a user enters the email address to sign up or subscribe to your newsletters, an email is sent with a verification link. The mail of the user is included in the list once he clicks on the verification link.
This double opt-in system ensures that the user is a real human being. It shows the interest of the user in your service. Furthermore, it shows the user has permitted you to use the email address.
3) Allow user to update the information
Updated information helps you duce bounce rate. You can keep an eye on the list to remove those email addresses which don’t look like valid and active. You can allow the user to do this for you. If a user is interested in your services, he will try to keep himself updated. So, in cases like email change, new email, or change in preferences, you will always have the updated information.
4) Use a properly formatted email
The spam filters have become advanced nowadays. The last thing you want in a marketing campaign is your email address being caught by spam filtered.
You should create your email address according to the given email format standards.
An email address:
- Shouldn’t be too long
- Shouldn’t have a too long domain name
- Free from prohibited or spammy keywords
- Avoid special characters
5) Be regular in a marketing campaign
It’s important to make a mailing schedule. It gives you an idea of the engagement rate. Hence, you can segment your list according to the engagement rate shown by the user. It will help you reduce your bounce rate. Remember that, send your emails only when the user is expecting an email from you. Don’t be an unwanted guest. Proper time and day can increase your conversion rate.
That’s why you should have a proper strategy before you start an email campaign.
6) Clean the list regularly
Email addresses decay over time. An active email address today might become inactive tomorrow. Email cleaning allows you to keep your mailing list fresh. Definitely, your bounce rate will decrease when you send your emails to active email addresses only.
An email verification service can do all the hard work for you. It can help you reduce your email bounce rate effectively. Whenever a user signs up, the email address is verified through advanced processes automatically. If it qualifies, it is included in the list.
You can also upload an email list to get it cleaned and verified. $19 for 5000 email checks won’t break your bank. However, it can help you fill your bank account by reducing the bounce rate and hence more conversions. After all, email marketing is all about the conversions.