Most businesses send email newsletters to their subscribers to inform them about new product launches or any upcoming event. You have crafted a compelling email message for your audience, and later you realize that your message is not delivered to your subscribers. Sounds frustrating, right? This is called email bounce back.
When an email is bounced back, it is not delivered to the recipient or sent to spam. It can affect the sender’s reputation and land emails in the inboxes. The reason for email bounce backs can be your IP address – maybe it is blacklisted.
Also, most email platforms are paid, which means that you’re paying for contacts that bounce.
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What Is Email Bounce Rate?
The email bounce rate is the percentage of email addresses in a mailing list bounced back from the recipient’s server. There are several reasons for email bounce back, such as the email address is incorrect or inactive.
It happens when the recipients’ server considers your email address as spam. This could be because of the email content or a poor sender reputation. The more this happens, the harder it becomes to resolve. And it can negatively affect your email marketing campaigns.
How To Calculate Email Bounce Rate?
Let’s say, out of 100 email lists, if 5 of them are bounced back, then your email bounce rate is 5%. There are two types of email bounces: Hard Bounce and Soft Bounce. So, in this case, you have a hard bounce rate of 2% and a soft bounce rate of 3%.
Know that the email bounce rate keeps fluctuating during the lifecycle of your contacts. Remember, keeping your score as low as possible is the key. To do that, you can change your approach or create a new email address.
5 Tips To Reduce Email Bounce Rate
So, now you have a glimpse of what email bounce rate is and how to calculate it, let’s discuss some of the ways to reduce email bounce rate:
1. Clean Your Data Regularly
Cleaning your email list is crucial as it can become populated over time with inactive accounts. And sending emails to inactive subscribers isn’t worth it. Keeping your email list clean and active is the key to reducing email bounce rates.
Start by getting rid of users who haven’t opened your emails in a while, or conduct a retargeting campaign to identify accounts that don’t want to receive emails from you.
2. Authenticate Your Emails
Authenticating your emails is the key to getting good deliverability rates as it helps you meet accepted standards by your Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
Email authentication standards used are SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance).
- SPF – This is a framework that validates an email message that has been sent from an authorized email server.
- DKIM – It is a digital signature that verifies your server is legitimate and authorized.
- DMARC – It controls what happens when emails fail an authorization test.
3. Write Quality Email Content
Always prioritize quality over quantity in your email marketing campaigns. If your email content isn’t relevant and informative, it will not convince your subscribers to take action and may land in the spam folder.
Pay close attention to subject lines, calls-to-action, email template, and the content in the body. Avoid spam-like elements, such as large images or attachments, which are treated as spam. Also, it is crucial to include an unsubscribe link that allows users to opt out from your email marketing list and won’t receive any emails in the future. Know that any email without an unsubscribe link is considered spam.
4. Use A Good Captcha System
A good captcha system identifies bots and spam accounts that sign up for your email list. It ensures only real accounts are subscribing to your email list.
For example, a bot is programmed to register for a Yahoo email address and work with a system to send spam to the list of emails they have acquired. The email addresses can also be used to register on websites and post ads in blogs and forums, etc.
5. Get Clear Opt-Ins
A double opt-in method is used to send emails to the subscribers only when they subscribe to an emailing list. When they subscribe, be transparent about how frequently you send emails to them. For example, sign up to get our ‘monthly social media marketing tips.’
Conclusion
Overlooking email bounce rate can affect the deliverability of your emails, and you may struggle to achieve the desired results.
Implementing the right strategies, regularly monitoring your efforts, and cleaning the email lists is the key to reducing email bounce rates.
Following the tips mentioned above can help you get the most out of your email marketing efforts.
