Bounce Handling & Classification

The most important rule of list hygiene. This section covers the "magic" industry standard: 1 Hard Bounce = Suppress Immediately. 3-5 Soft Bounces = Suppress. How you handle bounces is a massive signal of your quality as a sender.

14 questions in this topic

How do ESPs categorize bounce types? What is a “bounce processor”? What’s the difference between internal vs external bounce parsing? How does a system detect false positives in bounces? What is bounce normalization? How do ESPs build bounce dictionaries? How do they decide when to suppress an address? What is a “non-standard bounce” (custom message)? How do you handle ambiguous bounces (e.g., “undeliverable”)?; How do role addresses trigger inconsistent bounce behavior? What is “list hygiene automation” via bounce mapping? How do ESPs handle auto-responses vs bounces? What is the risk of misclassified auto-replies? How can misinterpretation cause accidental suppression?

Questions about Bounce Handling & Classification