The Marketing Cloud Email Studio allows marketers to create personalised emails for marketing purposes and send them to specific segments. For a successful email campaign, the quality of your mailing list is crucial, otherwise, you are at risk of ending up on a blacklist. But even with up-to-date, carefully managed lists, it happens that emails do not reach the recipient. These errors are returned to Marketing Cloud as so-called bounces and allow you to see the reason for the sending error.
In the Marketing Cloud, each contact has one of the following email statuses. Bounces must be seen in this context:
Active (green)
The goal is to have as many active subscribers as possible on mailing lists. Active subscribers are a sign that emails are arriving in the inbox. This means that no activity has occurred that would cause the subscriber's status to be Bounced, Undeliverable, Unsubscribed or Deleted.
Bounced / Returned (yellow)
With this status, the email was rejected by the recipient's email server. This means that a subscriber has one or more soft or hard bounces.Cause |
Definition | Possible cautions and resolutions |
Inactive Account | Address is temporarily unavailable as recipient's mailbox is inactive or temporarily disabled. | The subscriber's email account is temporarily inactive or disabled. Mailboxes can be disabled for several reasons, including infrequent use, change of address, delinquency, or dispute. These errors could be temporary or permanent. We recommend sending messages to these subscribers in the short term to monitor acceptance, and then contacting the subscriber through other methods to confirm the address. |
Mailbox Full | Recipient's mailbox is full or has exceeded storage allocation. | Your recipient's mailbox is full or it has exceeded its storage allocation. A full mailbox is usually from infrequent use, a temporary change in email checking habits, or an address change. Mailbox full errors are a warning sign. Consider contacting the subscriber through alternative means to confirm that you're mailing to a valid and frequently checked address. |
Temporary Domain Failure | Temporary failure at the receiving domain. | The subscriber's mailbox isn't currently accepting messages. Resolve this temporary issue before future sends. Continue to monitor deliverability for this subscriber. Consider contacting this subscriber through alternative means if these deliverability issues persist. |
Other | Mailbox temporarily unavailable or indecipherable bounce message received. | The subscriber's mailbox isn't currently accepting messages. Resolve this temporary issue before future sends. Continue to monitor deliverability for this subscriber. Consider contacting this subscriber through alternative means if these deliverability issues persist. |
A block bounce is a subcategory of soft bounce. Block bounces occur when an email server rejects an email due to filter issues. This includes, for example, URL blocks, no clear authentication or the domain or IP address is on a blacklist. In case of a block bounce, delivery is attempted again the next time an email is sent.
Cause | Definition |
Complaint | Your email is blocked due to complaints. |
Blacklist | IP address is on a blacklist. |
Content | Message was filtered due to content. |
URL Block | Emails containing your URLs are blocked. |
Authentification | Message lacks required authentication. |
Cause | Definition |
Server too busy | Receiving email server is temporarily overwhelmed with delivery attempts from you and other senders. |
Data Format Error | Email is rejected due to formatting or line length errors. |
Network Error | Connection lost or timed out during delivery line length errors. |
Cause | Definition | Possible Cautions and Resolutions |
Domain unknown | Domain is bad or non-existent. | Sending to unknown domains is a result of poor data capture methods, old data, or questionable data sources. Sending to old lists can also increase the likelihood of mailing to dead domains, as domains that are no longer active are represented on old lists. To avoid receiving a high number of "Domain Unknown" errors, we recommend sending a test send to 10% of your regular mailing volume. You can assess the results from the test send without exceeding the acceptable bounce and complain rates and make a reasonable risk assessment before proceeding with a larger send. |
User Unknown | Address is invalid or failure is permanent per bounce message. | Industry statistics indicate that up to 33% of email addresses become invalid over 12 months. Receiving the User Unknown error indicates that the address is no longer active or has never been an active email address. Because of the high turnover rate of email addresses, sending to subscribers regularly decreases the possibility of a sudden spike on a specific campaign. If mailing to an old subscriber list, we recommend sending a random 10% test to avoid a sudden increase in bounces. This error could also be the result of poor data capture methods. If so, we recommend requiring subscribers to enter their email address twice. |
Bad Address Syntax | Email address invalid. | The email contains incorrect syntax. For example, you left out the "@" symbol or didn't include a domain name (like "examplecom" instead of "example.com"). Check your email address syntax and correct any errors you see. |
High Unknown Address Percentage | Email is blocked due to the high quantity or percentage of unknown or inactive addresses on your list. | The subscriber's ISP has flagged your IP address for sending too many messages that got blocked. The ISP sees that you sent emails to people that didn't accept them. |
Other | Address is invalid or failure is permanent per bounce message. |
It is absolutely essential to understand the bounce management of Marketing Cloud because it is not quite intuitive. By understanding the functionality, mailing lists can be adjusted and measures can be taken to increase or maintain a high deliverability rate. Be sure that you only send your campaigns to subscribers, who explicitly agreed to receive your emails and keep your lists up-to-date. If you have any questions about bounce management, please feel free to contact us.
Reference:
https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=mc_es_bounce_mail_management.htm&type=5
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