Bounce rate (email)
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The percentage of sent emails that were not delivered. Hard bounces are permanent failures. Soft bounces are temporary.
Email bounce rate is the percentage of emails that failed to deliver. A hard bounce means the email address does not exist or the domain is invalid. A soft bounce means the mailbox was full, the server was temporarily unavailable, or the message was too large.
Hard bounces should be removed from your list immediately to protect email deliverability. Continuing to send to addresses that hard bounce damages your sender reputation and hurts deliverability for the entire list. Soft bounces can be retried a few times but should be removed after three consecutive failures.
A healthy bounce rate is below 2%. If your bounce rate exceeds 5%, your list quality is poor. You are likely sending to old email addresses, purchased lists, or contacts who changed jobs. Clean the list aggressively.
Examples
A purchased list destroys bounce rate.
A company buys a list of 10,000 'verified' email addresses. Sends a campaign. Bounce rate: 18%. Spam complaints: 3%. The email provider suspends the account. Two weeks of remediation. The purchased list cost $2,000 and caused $20,000 in damage.
Regular list cleaning maintains quality.
Quarterly list cleaning process: remove all hard bounces, remove contacts who have not opened in 12 months, verify email addresses using a validation service. List size drops from 15,000 to 11,000. Bounce rate drops from 4.2% to 0.8%. Open rate increases from 22% to 31%.
Job changes cause gradual bounce rate increase.
In B2B, people change jobs frequently. An email list loses 2-3% of valid addresses per month as contacts leave their companies. Without regular cleaning, bounce rate creeps up from 1% to 6% over a year.
In practice
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Frequently asked questions
What is an acceptable email bounce rate?
Below 2% is healthy. Below 1% is excellent. Above 5% indicates list quality problems. Remove hard bounces immediately and soft bounces after 3 consecutive failures.
What is the difference between hard and soft bounces?
Hard bounces are permanent: the email address does not exist or the domain is invalid. Remove them immediately. Soft bounces are temporary: full mailbox, server down, message too large. Retry 2-3 times, then remove.
Related terms
The percentage of sent emails that actually reach the recipient's inbox. The foundation of every email marketing program.
A score assigned to your email domain and IP address by email providers. Determines whether your emails reach the inbox or spam folder.
The percentage of delivered emails that recipients opened. A proxy for subject line effectiveness and sender trust.
A recurring email to subscribers with curated content, insights, or updates. The most valuable owned audience channel in B2B marketing.
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