Dealing with Persistent Email Bounces: Tips and Tricks

Navigating email bounces can feel like a hurdle, but understanding their nuances and adopting smart strategies can turn this challenge into an opportunity. With HubSpot’s email marketing tools, managing bounces becomes a straightforward process, allowing you to protect your sender reputation and keep your campaigns running smoothly.

Here’s everything you need to know about email bounce management in HubSpot, along with actionable tips to improve email deliverability and maintain a healthy list.

Understanding Email Bounces: Soft vs Hard

Not all bounces are created equal, and knowing the difference helps you take the right actions:

• Soft Bounces: These are temporary hiccups—like full inboxes or server downtime—that often resolve themselves.
• Hard Bounces: These are permanent failures, usually caused by invalid email addresses or domain issues.

HubSpot automatically suppresses hard-bounced emails to protect your sender reputation, giving you peace of mind while you focus on what matters—your audience.

What’s Causing Persistent Email Bounces?

There are a few common reasons emails might bounce, and understanding these can help you fix the problem faster:

1. Invalid Email Addresses: Often caused by typos or outdated contact information.
2. Recipient Servers Rejecting Emails: This might happen due to spam filters or strict email policies.
3. Suppression of Risky Addresses: HubSpot proactively suppresses contacts flagged as high-risk to maintain your deliverability rates.

Identifying and addressing these issues promptly is key to improving email bounce management in HubSpot.

Pro Tips for a Healthy Email List

A clean and well-maintained email list is the backbone of successful campaigns. Here’s how you can achieve it with HubSpot:

• Regular List Clean-Up: Use HubSpot’s Manage Contacts feature to filter and remove invalid or inactive addresses that might lead to bounces.
• Segment Your Audience: With HubSpot’s segmentation tools, group contacts based on engagement, preferences, or past interactions to create tailored campaigns that resonate.

Using HubSpot to Monitor Bounce Rates

HubSpot’s analytics tools make it easy to track and manage email bounce rates. Here’s how:

1. Head to the Email Dashboard to review performance metrics.
2. Use the Post-Send Email Performance Report to identify patterns in hard bounces.
3. Export your bounced contacts for a deeper analysis and update their details where needed.

Effective Steps to Resolve Hard Bounced Emails

When it comes to hard bounces, quick action is crucial. Here’s a step-by-step approach:

1. Review Bounced Contacts: Go to the Contact Properties in HubSpot and check for invalid or outdated email addresses.
2. Unbounce Updated Contacts: Once an email address is corrected, use HubSpot’s Remove from Bounce List feature to resume sending emails.
3. Exclude Risky Contacts: Add hard-bounced addresses to suppression lists to prevent future issues.

By understanding email bounces and leveraging HubSpot’s features, you can optimise your email marketing strategy, improve deliverability, and maintain a strong sender reputation.

Ready to take your email campaigns to the next level? Book a chat with BLOOM Transitions today and discover how HubSpot’s tools can work for you!