How can I reduce my bounce rate?

Bounce rate reduction starts with understanding which kind of bounce you're dealing with, because hard bounces and soft bounces need completely different responses.

Hard bounces are permanent failures: the address doesn't exist, the domain is dead, or the receiving server has blocked you outright. Remove these immediately after the first bounce. Keeping hard-bounced addresses on your list tells mailbox providers you're not maintaining your list, and your sender reputation takes the hit on every send.

Soft bounces are temporary: the mailbox is full, the server was momentarily overloaded, or you hit a rate limit. Your ESP will automatically retry soft bounces. After a series of failed retries, most ESPs reclassify the address as a hard bounce.

To bring your bounce rate down:

• Use confirmed opt-in at the point of signup. When subscribers have to click a confirmation link, you filter out typos and fake addresses before they ever reach your list.
• Validate imported addresses before sending to a new or old list. Even contacts collected two years ago can have significant decay. Our list cleaning service flags invalid and risky addresses before you send to them.
• Audit your signup forms. Autocomplete and autofill often insert truncated or misformatted addresses. Test your forms from a mobile device.
• Never send to purchased or scraped lists. These are full of invalid addresses, spam traps, and role accounts. One campaign to a rented list can permanently damage a sending domain.

For context on what happens after a bounce is logged and how your ESP handles it, see what a hard bounce is and what a soft bounce is.