Managing, removing, and preventing bounced emails

Troubleshoot problem email addresses, remove bounced email addresses from a list, and prevent future bounces from happening

After you've sent your email, the reporting might show that some of your email addresses bounced; bounces are contacts who didn't receive your email for a variety of reasons. In order to keep your email lists clean and full of quality contacts, it's important to know why an email address bounced, how to manage bounces, and when to remove a contact from your list.

We recommend that you try to resolve the issue a contact might have first, then remove those email addresses that just aren't working—we’ll help you figure out which those are.

• Types of bounces and what to do about them
• Bounces that are recommended for removal
• Steps to remove problem email addresses
• Tips to prevent future bounces from happening

Types of bounces and what to do about them

When an email address bounces, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) sends back a reason, telling us why it bounced. It may sound simple, but it can be complicated because different ISPs and different types of mail servers all use different "response codes" to let us know why the email address is bouncing. We attempt to categorize the bounce into one of seven different bounce types to help you determine how to handle it.

Taking action to clean up bounced email addresses helps your deliverability! If an ISP sees repeated send attempts to an email address that’s bouncing, they're more likely to treat your email as spam. Listed below are the different bounce types you might see and suggestions for what to do about them:

Important: If a contact tells you they aren't receiving your email and they aren't on your bounce list, ask the contact to check their spam folder. If the email isn't in the spam folder, you can have your contact safelist your "From Email" address in their email account or security program.

Bounces that are recommended for removal

There are some bounce types that have a high probability of being permanently invalid and it's best that they be removed right away. To assist with this, Constant Contact has the “Recommended For Removal” category, which can be found within an email’s Bounced report. Included within this category are:

• Non-existent bounces   
• Undeliverable bounces
• Suspended addresses

While the remaining bounce types may only bounce due to a temporary issue, we’ve found that these three categories are rarely valid email addresses. 

View the recommended for removal bounce report:

1. From the menu on the left, click Reporting.
2. Scroll down to the Email campaigns table and click on the hyperlinked number in the Bounces column. 
   Note: If you set your email to automatically resend to non-openers, you'll be brought to the Email Details page. Simply click on the hyperlinked Bounces number to get to the Bounced report in step 4.
   
   
    
3. In the All types drop-down, select "Recommended for removal." 
   
   

Important: To review and manage bounces for subject line A/B Test emails, follow the process outlined here.

Steps to remove problem email addresses

After you send an email, check your reporting for bounces—they’ll typically show up right away if you have any. Removing email addresses that consistently bounce is an important part of keeping your contact lists clean. The best way to remove them is to unsubscribe them:

• If you upload a spreadsheet of contacts that includes an email address already marked as unsubscribed, you're prevented from accidentally sending email to that contact and therefore won't cause an unintended bounce.
• Unsubscribed email addresses are no longer in an active status, so they don't count towards your contact tier and won't affect your billing.
• You're not able to send email to unsubscribed contacts until they re-subscribe themselves through one of your sign-up forms.
• It doesn't matter if a contact unsubscribes themselves or if you do it manually—having unsubscribed contacts helps you keep a clean contact list full of contacts that actually want to hear from you, and can actually improve your open rates. 

Unsubscribe contacts on the recommended for removal report:

1. From the "Recommended for removal" view, select some or all of the contacts.
2. Click Actions > Delete.
   
   
    
3. (Optional) Select "Delete these, but don't unsubscribe them" to remove these contacts from your account, but allow them to be added back as mailable contacts at any time. To avoid accidentally re-uploading and sending email to these bad email addresses, we recommend unsubscribing them.
4. Click Delete & Unsubscribe or Delete Only.
   
   
    

Keep in mind that unsubscribing contacts doesn't remove them from your reporting. However, you'll see strike-throughs running through the email addresses and you won't be able to click to view or edit the contact records.

Tips to prevent future bounces from happening

Not all bounces are preventable, but you can cut down the number:  

• Don't purchase a list - Buying a list may seem like an easy way to grow the number of contacts you mail to, but it's against our email permission policy, it's something that spammers do, and you don't know how old the email addresses are. We have tons of  sign-up tools to help you grow your list organically with people who are actually giving you permission to email them.
• Check your reporting after every send - Take the time to manage your bounces. If you have bounces, moving them to your list of unsubscribes prevents any continuous or accidental mailings to a bad address in the future.
• Enable Confirmed Opt-in - Keep bad email addresses out of your account from the start! Confirmed Opt-in asks new contacts to click a confirmation link in an email sent to the address they provided when they signed up for your list. If they don't click the link, they won't receive your emails.
• Groom your Update Profile Form - There's an "Update Profile" link that lives in your email's footer. When your contacts click the link, they're sent an email asking them to update their contact information and to choose the mailing lists they want to be part of. You can customize the form so that it only asks for the information you need—asking for too many details turns people off. Nothing will happen to the contacts who don't take action, but keeping the form simple won't scare your contacts away from updating their email addresses.

Questions?