A soft bounce is an email’s temporary delivery failure. This can occur for several reasons, but in most cases, the email will be sent successfully once the issue is resolved. If the email still can’t be delivered after the supposed issue has been resolved, it should be considered a hard bounce, which is an email’s permanent delivery failure. This can also be due to many reasons, but nothing can be done to reverse it.
Soft bounces may occur for so many reasons, including:
- The email is too large.
- The inbox is full.
- The domain name doesn’t exit.
- The email contains an unsupported file format.
- The recipient’s server is unavailable.
- The email does not meet the sender’s requirements.
- Relay failure between mail servers.
- The email is blocked because you have a poor IP address reputation.
- It could also be that the email can’t be relayed due to unknown reasons.
- The mailbox is inactive.
- The email message doesn’t meet anti-virus requirements.
- The mailbox isn’t configured correctly.
- Email message failed DMARC.
- The recipient has received too many emails within a short time.
- Email messages don’t meet anti-spam requirements.
- The email was blocked because of its content.
How to Reduce Soft Bounces in Email Marketing
Here are some measures you can put in place to reduce soft bounces in your email marketing campaigns.
Use Double Opt-in
It is very important to send confirmation emails to new subscribers so they can confirm that they willingly subscribed to your email list and are genuinely interested in your content. This helps you ensure that their email addresses are active.
Watch Out for Spam Triggers
Spam triggers are the leading cause of soft bounces, so when crafting your emails, you must avoid spam trigger words or at least use them in the right context; spam filters will reject emails with suspicious or malicious content to protect their users.
Send Engaging Content Every Time
The best way to ensure your emails will be delivered every time is to create engaging and valuable content; when your subscribers love your content, they will always engage your emails, increasing your sender’s reputation and trustworthiness.