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.
Questions about Bounce Handling & Classification
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?