Glossary keyword - Soft Bounce

A soft bounce refers to the number of emails that are denied temporarily by the email servers of recipients. Soft bounce emails reach the recipients' email box whenever the recipient or the server fixes the reasons for the denial. The terms like hard and soft bounce used as equivalent to the broad descriptions that explain whether the sender's email reaches the target or not. From a technical standpoint, there can be lots of grey areas that marketers need to focus on while operating their email marketing campaigns. One of the issues that they may have is a soft bounce.

Why do emails bounce?

A bounce can be taken as a temporary indicator that tells the sender of the email about current problems, which cuts the connection between them and receiver parties.

The reason for the soft bounce can be:

• A sender may have problems because receivers' inbox providers have blocked their email. Inbox providers may have marked the sender's email address as spam, and that could lead to soft bounce issues.

• A sender could be blocked because their email address could have been added to the blacklist

• The email account that could potentially be a receiver can be blocked, or temporarily suspended because of misuse or spams

• The recipient's mailbox could be full, and that can lead to this situation

• The email account of the recipients' could be banned

• Unforeseen errors in the receiver's email server

How to avoid soft bounces?

Temporary or soft bounces do not require immediate attention by senders because they can resolve on their own. Matt McFee, who is the CEO of Briteverify, suggest to treat soft bounces just like hard bounces, and he states that if the receiver cannot receive that email three times, then senders need to skip it and remove that email address from their list.