How to Deal Effectively with Email Bounces
Did you know that bounced emails, that is, emails that do not reach the recipient's inbox, have a negative impact on your reputation as a sender? Let's imagine the situation: a subscriber signs up to receive information about your business that interests them by mail and, for one reason or another, does not reach them. This is a lose-lose situation. Unfortunately, bounced emails are part of the routine of email marketing. It can happen that people change their email address without notifying the email lists to which they are subscribed. The old account can be left abandoned for years before it is deactivated. A high bounce rate can be devastating to your overall email deliverability rate, so it's important not to overlook it. Do not think that it is a circumstance in which you cannot do anything. If you work to improve it, you will increase opens and clicks and have a good list of subscribers to communicate with.
Why do emails bounce
There are several reasons why emails bounce and it is difficult to figure out why a particular email did not reach its recipient.
Some possibilities are:
- The recipient no longer has access to the email account;
- The email account has been inactive for a long time or has been deleted;
- The email server is under construction;
- The receiver's inbox is full;
- The receiver has included you in his list of blocked;
Instead of focusing on why a specific email was not delivered, it's better to take an overview of your bounce rate and work on improving it globally.
Why Bounce Rate Matters
The bounce rate of your emails can affect the delivery of all emails in general. If it always stays high, your reputation as a sender can plummet considerably. The worse your reputation, the more likely it is that your emails end up in the spam folder, even the recipients who usually open your emails and interact with you. When this happens, you will begin to notice a decrease in the level of interaction, including lower open, click and finally sales rates. Therefore, you want to keep your mailing list as clean as possible and with addresses where there are no bounces. This will ensure that most of your recipients receive your emails where they can see them and not in the spam (or junk) folder where they probably won't look.
How to reduce the bounce rate of your emails
If you have detected a higher than average bounce rate or you simply want to reduce it to optimize results, here are some techniques to reduce the bounce rate of your emails.
1. Double opt-in
If you double opt-in with your subscribers and confirm their email addresses, there will be fewer people putting up fake or inactive email accounts. The double opt-in system works by sending a "confirmation" email to a recipient when they subscribe to your mailing list and not adding them until they click the confirm button. By sending them an initial confirmation email before listing them, you ensure that the recipient is using a correct address where emails are accepted.
2. Clean your list regularly
Over time, your mailing list will have more and more inactive accounts and reception problems if you don't clean up. As with anything, a little review every now and then will keep your list active and in good shape. Start by eliminating inactive users and people who have not opened your emails for a long time, or you can also organize a retargeting campaign to clearly see which accounts are no longer used or do not want to receive your emails.
3. Verify that your emails are not classified as spam
Statistics show 53% of emails sent worldwide are spam. Most likely, your emails will not fall into this percentage, but there are some key indicators that email providers use to identify spam and you may be using one of them without realizing it. To send mass emails and not activate the dreaded spam filter, do not use broken images or use messages in your emails that would trigger red alerts from spam detectors. In short, use your intuition to distinguish which messages you would perceive as spam when receiving an email and avoid those terms and phrases.
4. Segment your list
Segmenting your list means that each subscriber receives only the information they are interested in and need. This way, they are less likely to reject your emails or mark them as spam. One of the most effective ways to segment is based on interaction: group your most active subscribers into a list and send them more emails than less active subscribers. They have shown that your emails are welcome in their mailbox and the more you encourage their interaction, the better results your email campaigns will have. Engagement-based targeting also lets you organize retargeting campaigns to keep your less active subscribers coming back. This can also reduce your bounce rate.
5. Let yourself be seen with some regularity
We have all received an email from someone we do not know, and then we realize that a year before we had subscribed to their mailing list and since then we had not heard from them. Collecting email addresses and then disappearing is not a good idea. You will have to show yourself in the subscribers' inbox without abusing, but with some regularity. Having a list of people who open your emails and interact with them will help you clean up the list when you need it.
6. Don't use free email domains
Most of today's email marketing providers recommend sending emails from a domain that you own. That is, do not use an address from a free platform such as Gmail or Yahoo! Sending them from your own domain, such as [email protected] confirms that you are a real person or business and reduces the chances that the emails will go to the spam tray.
7. Perform A / B tests with your emails
Some emails have better results than others. Test items like the subject line and email content to determine which phrases or items your subscribers respond best to. The A / B test for emails consists of sending two different emails to two different groups of subscribers and seeing which of them has better results. Their findings allow us to measure and adjust what works and what doesn't to favor subscriber interaction.
8. Eliminate hard bouncing addresses from your list
One thing you should definitely do is remove hard bounced email bouncing addresses from your recipient list. There is no point in keeping them because they are incorrect or inactive, so the emails will never reach them. Eliminating hard bouncing directions as soon as you spot them will help you keep a low bounce rate.
9. Use a subscription form with a good captcha system
A captcha system quickly identifies bots or spam accounts that sign up to your mailing list. Integrating it into your registration form will ensure that only real people who want to join your list do so.
10. Offer appropriate content to encourage subscriptions
It is often common that users sign up to your mailing list after being interested in an ebook, a demo, or other free content that you offer them. To ensure that the subscribers who sign up to your list are there for a good reason and have real interest, include valuable content that is highly targeted to your target audience. The more they identify with the content they receive, the more likely they are to give you an active email address and then open your emails.
11. Ask subscribers to inform you of the changes
Sometimes people change their email address. You may no longer have the same email address you did when you were a teenager. To make sure your list includes active email accounts, ask your subscribers to let you know if there are any major changes. For example, when they have a new job and therefore change their email address, or if their personal information changes in some other way.
Reducing the bounce rate IS in your hands
Although it is often thought that it is not important or that there is nothing to do to decrease it, your bounce rate can greatly affect the sending of all your emails. If it is too high, it will have negative effects on your email marketing campaign and it will cost you to achieve the desired results. Keeping it low will guarantee that your contact list is in good shape.