Why Email Addresses Bounce » Email Marketing

Updated: May 6, 2022

Wondering Why Email Addresses Bounce?

A user recently asked why email addresses bounce in their campaigns. It’s not an uncommon question so I thought I’d take a moment to dig in to it a little bit. Over the past 20+ years, I have personally never given much thought to why an email address would bounce. I just know that some do. My focus has always been on interacting with the reader on the other side of the email address that doesn’t bounce.

But it can be helpful to get an overall idea of why email addresses bounce when it comes to email marketing. So here is what we know.

Email Addresses Go Inactive

Think back on your own experiences. Over the years, you have probably used a number of email addresses. Over time, some get shut down. Maybe you closed that account. Maybe the service you were using shut down. Maybe you broke up with the person that you shared that address with. Maybe you realized that adding your birthdate or the year you opened that AOL account wasn’t quite the email address you wanted, right?

When you first opened that email address you may have used it to subscribe to various offers and now any email sent to that address bounces back.

Sometimes People Use “Dump” Accounts

We’ve all seen those folks that just love to request information over and over, again. Some might call them “information junkies”. These folks will open a junk account they have no intention of actually using. Then they use that email address to subscribe to various offers for free trials, free sample, etc.. Over time, the email account becomes full and/or gets terminated by that provider. Any email that is sent that address starts bouncing due to quota issues or just old-fashioned inactivity.

Sometimes Service Providers Have Tech Issues

Even the big services will experience technical issues from time to time. When that happens, the service provider can “throttle” or slow down the service. Some email addresses bounce the messages back in the process. Sometimes the service provider will retry and deliver the email later. Sometimes the message can’t be delivered.

Why is all this relevant to your email marketing campaigns with TrafficWave? Overall, it really isn’t. There isn’t anything you can do about email addresses that get discontinued, terminated, or throttled. It may be helpful to know that is just happens sometimes.

When we see a temporary issue with an email address in your TrafficWave campaigns, we keep an eye on it. Those addresses that resolve are left alone and your messages keep going out. Those messages that show repeated bounces over time will be removed from your campaign so that you don’t experience further deliverability issues.

This is why TrafficWave experiences such high deliverability. Not only is each email address confirmed through our double opt-in system, we constantly monitor for for when email addresses bounce and manage those so that your deliverability remains as high as possible.

Many of our competitors leave the address in your account, stop sending to that address, and continue charging you for the address.

We just want to understand that email addresses bounce from time to time. Our focus should always be on building and maintaining good rapport with those addresses that are still active in the system. The human on the other side of that email address may become your next customer!

Brian Rooney, CEO and Co-Founder
TrafficWave.net

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