You pour your heart and soul into your customers’ email marketing. You spend hours choosing the correct visuals, writing relevant language, and segmenting your audience so that your material reaches the proper inboxes. That’s why seeing an email bounce stings.

Although this may irritate your inner perfectionist, bounces are totally typical in email marketing. You can’t prevent them totally, but you can keep your email bounce rate low.

Certain elements are under your control, while others must be left to the email gods and adjusted appropriately.

This article will discuss what causes emails to bounce and how to maintain your bounce rate as low as possible.

What steps can marketers take to reduce their email bounce rate?

Depending on the size of your list, aim for a healthy email bounce rate of 2-3%. Still, get rid of those hard bounces as soon as possible.

When it comes to soft bounces, however, you may take a few measures to guarantee that your email delivery are optimized.

Use a trustworthy email service provider

A strong ESP will have a dedicated compliance and deliverability staff that proactively checks IP health and works with customers to maintain a positive sender reputation. By enforcing a strict permission-only sending strategy and adhering to the latest email marketing industry standards, this significantly decreases the risk for all consumers.

Validate your domain

This is simple to do via your email service provider and may help to reduce your bounce rate. It essentially implies that you’ve granted a certain server access to deliver emails from your domain to the address of your website.

Keep your photos (and emails) as tiny as possible

Email clients may simply return big emails to the sender. Check the size of your emails if you’re receiving a lot of bounces. Here are some examples of common restrictions:

• Gmail: 25Mb
• Outlook: 20Mb
• Yahoo: 25Mb

In general, it’s a good idea to start modest since it will assist your emails load fast on mobile devices.

To guarantee best deliverability, this email from Whole Foods comprises relatively minimal images as well as a healthy proportion of real content.

Avoid activating spam filters

Spam filters constantly improve their algorithms. Marketers must be informed on what constitutes spam in order to avoid being reported and harming the reputation of their brands or ESPs.

In general, restrict the size of your emails and visuals, eliminate trigger phrases such as “money,” and avoid writing in all capitals. Sending email campaigns with attachments or a lot of exclamation points may seem spammy to readers and reduce engagement. And little interaction might lead to your communications being marked as spam.

Blue Apron’s email has a decent combination of photos, content, and links. To comply with international anti-spam rules, it also includes an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

Make use of a strong signup form and double opt-in features

If you use double opt-in features when your subscribers join up, you may easily prevent hard bounces. Each subscriber will get an email asking them to confirm their spot on your list after inputting their email address for the first time.

To join up, each subscriber must physically click “yes” or follow a particular link. This immediately eliminates invalid emails.

Opt-in emails, such as this one from Auto Trader, are an excellent way to prevent harsh bounces. Furthermore, they guarantee that only persons who wish to hear from you get your emails.

Wrap up

What makes a genuine email bounce? Email bounces are a common occurrence in email marketing. Adjust your campaigns and try again if you’re receiving a lot of soft bounces. Hard bounces, on the other hand, should be eliminated promptly or your service provider’s reputation may suffer. In general, aim for a low email bounce rate and continue to provide relevant information to your subscribers.