Email Bounce Rate: How to Calculate It

Understanding email bounce rate and its calculation will help you improve your reputation. In addition, it helps you land emails in your recipient’s inbox.

In today’s article, you will understand what is email bounce rate, how to calculate it and simple ways to reduce it.

What is EmailAn email (or electronic mail) is a method of exchanging communications through the internet. It is one of the most used features on the web and the number one mean... Bounce Rate?

As an email marketer, it’s okay to wonder ‘what is email bounce rate?’ and ‘how to calculate bounce rate?’

Email bounce rate is the percentage of emails that “bounce” back to you from the email campaign.
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Having a high email bounce rate hurts your reputation. It can happen because your mailing list isn’t updated or there are errors in email addresses.

Internet Service Providers set limits for bounces, abuse and unsubscribers. If these rates are high, ISPs take action against you by issuing a warning or suspending the account altogether.

A small number of email bounce rate is acceptable. It’s impossible to go through the campaign without a single bounce.

The average email bounce rate across all industries is 1.06%. Even though every industry has its unique bounce rate, the benchmark is 2%.
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Therefore, anything over 2% requires immediate attention.

With MailsenPai, email marketers can avoid such situations by creating a unique marketing campaign with low bounce rates.

Types of Email Bounce Rates: Hard Bounce Vs Soft Bounce

Hard bounce emails: They’re emails that aren’t accepted by the recipients’ email server. Therefore, they bounced back to you. They’re permanent and occur because:

The email list is invalid
The domain is outdated
Emails aren’t in use.

Soft bounce emails: They’re emails that are accepted by the recipients’ email server but were still bounced back to you. They’re temporary and happen due to a number of reasons such as:

The recipient’s inbox is full
There’s a temporary error with the receiving server.

How to Calculate Bounce Rate

Now that you know what is email bounce rate, it’s time to understand how to calculate bounce rate.

To calculate the email bounce rate:

Divide the number of bounced emails by the total number of emails sent and multiply it by 100 to get the percentage.

Therefore, calculation of bounce rate becomes:

Bounce Rate = Bounced Emails/Total Emails Sent x 100

For instance, for your latest email campaign, you sent 10,000 emails. You received 500 email bounces.

The calculation of bounce rate will be done using our formula. Therefore, the values would be:

Bounce Rate = 500/10000 x 100

= 5%

The email bounce rate in this situation is high and you must take action to reduce it.

Why Do Emails Bounce?

There are several reasons why emails are bouncing. Therefore, sometimes it becomes difficult to understand why an individual email didn’t reach the recipient. This might be because the recipient:

Doesn’t have access to the email account
Marked you “spam” or blocked you
The server is under construction
Has an inactive email account
Deleted the email account

The Importance of Email Bounce Rate

Did you know that your email bounce rate affects the delivery of all your emails?

The better your reputation is, the higher your chances of reaching the recipient’s inbox. However, if your email bounce rate is high, you’ll start noticing a decline in your open and click-through rates and engagement level. In addition, it will also reduce the number of sales.

Therefore, it’s crucial to keep your email list clean and updated. This ensures that almost all of your recipients will get your email in their inboxes and not in the spam folder.

How to Reduce Email Bounce Rates

When a high number of your emails don’t reach your recipients, your reputation is affected. In addition, it also means that your campaign goal isn’t achieved.

Here are 15 easy ways to reduce email bounce rates.

#1. Regularly Update Your Lists

Your mailing list tends to become overpopulated with problematic or inactive accounts. Therefore, it’s important to clean it every 2-3 months.

Start getting rid of inactive users. Next, remove people who never open your emails. Then, carry out a retargeting campaign to identify accounts that don’t wish to receive your emails or aren’t in use anymore.

#2. Double Opt-Ins

Encourage your subscribers to double opt-in to confirm their email addresses. This ensures that fewer people put false emails or send emails to inactive accounts.

It works by sending a confirmation email to the recipient when they sign up for your mailing list. They’re only added to your list after they click the confirm button sent to their email address.

Therefore, they have to add a valid and correct email address that’s accepting emails.

#3. Avoid Spammy Emails

Statistics indicate that 53% of emails sent are spam. Your emails might not be spammy but there are a few key qualifiers that email providers use to identify spam. You may be unconsciously falling into them if:

You use phrases like “no catch”, “make money”, “free offer”, “cash bonus”, “big bucks”, “act now!” or “$$$”. Avoid using such phrases and broken pictures.

#4. Be Consistent

Once someone subscribes to your mailing list, it’s important that they receive a welcome email. They should hear back from you immediately and feel like a part of a community.

Don’t forget your subscribers and email them once or twice a year. The key to looking authentic is regularly sending emails. Understand email cadence and figure out how often you want to send emails.

#5. Segment Your Mailing List

This is one o the easiest ways to reduce email bounce rate.

Email segmentation allows you to send relevant information to your subscribers. Therefore, they’re less likely to mark your email spam or blacklist you.

You can segment your list based on different metrics such as demographics or engagement. For instance, if you’re segmenting based on your engagement, you can group together your most active subscribers. Send them more emails than subscribers who aren’t as active as them. After all, they’ve shown that they welcome your emails. Therefore, focus more on them to achieve better results.

#6. Use a Paid Sender Domain

Email marketing providers advise you to send emails from owned domains. Therefore, avoid sending emails from free platforms such as Yahoo or Google.

Send emails from your own domain (info@yourwebsite.com) as it verifies your identity. Therefore, your emails are less likely to land up in the spam folder.

#8. Filter Your List to Reduce Email Bounce Rate

This is something you should definitely do. Remove all the hard bounced email addresses from your mailing list. It doesn’t make sense to keep them because they’re either inactive or incorrect. Therefore, your emails will never reach them.

Eliminate hard bounced emails as soon as they appear to keep your list healthy and email bounce rate low.

With MailsenPai, hard bounced emails are immediately blacklisted. This ensures that no emails are ever sent to these email addresses. Therefore, it allows you to maintain an active, clean list of recipients.

Using a good captcha system allows you to identify spam accounts and bots that sign up to your mailing list. Place a captcha system along your signup form to ensure only genuinely interested people can sign up to your list.

#10. Take Feedback From Your Subscribers

People’s tastes and preferences change over time. So do their email dresses. To ensure your list only has active email accounts, it’s important to ask your subscribers to inform you of any changes. Regularly ask them if they’d like to update any details such as a new email address, update their email preferences, etc.

Doing so allows you to maintain an active, healthy and clean list. In addition, it encourages your subscribers to engage with you.

#11. Monitor Your Results to Reduce Email Bounce Rate

This is another easy way to reduce your email bounce rate. Regularly monitor your campaign results. If you see a sudden increase in bounce rates, immediately take a look at the bounce activity report. Are they hard or soft bounces? Take corrective action to reduce the damage.

#12. Avoid Purchasing Email Lists

It’s tempting to buy a ready-made email list especially when you’re just starting out. However, it’s important to remember it’s all about the quality and not the number of your subscribers.

Your email list might take a few months or years to build. However, it will be yours. Rather than spamming thousands of people, focus on a few people who’re genuinely interested in hearing from you.

#13. Seek Their Permission

Getting permission is the most effective way to reduce email bounce rate. In addition, it’s a legal requirement in most countries. Therefore, ensure that you have your subscriber’s permission to send them content.

#14. Personalize Your Emails

Sending personalized emails has two benefits. First, it sets you apart from your competitor’s emails. Second, it reduces your chances of being marked as spam. In addition, adding a personalized subject line increases open rates by 26%!

#15. Let Your Subscribers Take Control

As an email marketer, you may be sending different types of content to your subscribers. You may be using a combination of offers, tutorials, events, announcements or articles.

However, not all your subscribers like receiving such content. Some might like reading your articles while others are just interested in promotional offers.

By giving your subscribers control, you ensure that they stay engaged for more time.

In Conclusion

Believe it or not, your email bounce rate affects the deliverability of your emails. If it’s high, your reputation will suffer and you will struggle to get the results you desire.

Therefore, focus on keeping your email bounce rate low. This ensures that your list is full of subscribers who like receiving your emails.

Follow the tips we shared with you to reduce your email bounce rate. They’ll ultimately increase in more opens, click-throughs and sales.

Did you understand the calculation of bounce rate? If yes, tell us yours in the comments section below!

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