Bounce Handling

Overview

After an email Campaign has been launched, some messages may fail to be delivered for various reasons (see Email Bounce Conditions for the full list of possible reasons why an email might bounce). These reasons are categorized into two main groups: Hard and Soft Bounces.

Bounced records are not deleted from the system; instead, the platform will modify a record's Status ID Code based on the bounce condition it encountered. When a Campaign is launched, the platform checks the Status ID for each recipient in the Campaign audience to determine that recipient's eligibility to be contacted. Records that soft-bounced are flagged with a Status ID value of "1300," and records that hard-bounced are flagged with a value of "1350." Either of these conditions will result in that record automatically being suppressed from the Campaign.

Hard Bounces are considered permanent errors, meaning that not only did the email address for this particular Campaign fail, but all future Campaigns will continue to fail if the address is retried. Examples of Hard Bounces are when an email address does not exist, or was entered incorrectly. If an email address encounters a single Hard Bounce condition, the Status ID for that email address is changed to "1350," and that address will no longer be eligible to be contacted.

Soft Bounces are considered to be issues that could possibly be resolved, and allow this email address to again be reachable. Examples of Soft Bounces are a "server busy" condition, or the recipient's email inbox is full.

The platform doesn't automatically make recipients ineligible when a soft bounce condition is first encountered for an email address. Instead, the system will allow you to continue deploying email messages to that recipient, until a specified number of soft bounce incidents occur, within a specified timeframe.

The number of allowable retries is configurable per client. The Marigold Deliverability Team generally recommends a setting of 20 soft bounces in 30 days (this can differ based on mailing volumes). If a consumer's Status ID is null (active) today and she is then sent a Campaign where the email soft-bounces, then her Status ID will remain null (active), but in the database, the platform will start a counter. If the counter reaches 20 soft bounces in a 30 day period, then that consumer's Status ID will get changed to a value of "1300" and she will no longer be eligible to be contacted.

This soft bounce threshold is configured at the system level, and gets applied at the source table level. Each table from which you deploy email Campaigns will count soft bounces separately, and each table needs to meet the criteria specified in order to flag a record as a "soft bounce."

Note: This configuration setting is not the same thing as the automated retry cycle that's performed by the mailing server. When a message fails to deliver that is not a Hard Bounce, the server will automatically retry that email message every 15 minutes for two days (the retry cycle isn't configurable). At the end of the retry cycle, if the message was still not delivered, the system will consider that to be one "send."

Soft Bounces can optionally be further separated into a sub-category called "Temporary." This sub-category includes bounce conditions that are not related to the email address itself -- "content-related," "policy-related," "spam-related," and "virus-related." If you choose to categorize these conditions as "Temporary," these conditions will not count toward the soft bounce threshold.

The Bounce Handling screen provides various options for how you want the platform to handle records that encounter a bounce condition.

Access

The Bounce Handling screen is accessible by the following method:

From the Admin Banner Bar, select Settings > Data Settings > Bounce Handling

Features

Set Bounce Handling Rules

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To set the soft bounce retry threshold:

Within the "Soft Bounce Options" section, in the "Count" field, enter the maximum number of "sends."
In the "Time Period" field, enter the duration, in days.
Click save.

The "Soft Bounce Exceptions" section allows you to select which specific Email Bounce Conditions will be considered a "Hard Bounce," a "Soft Bounce," or a "Temporary Soft Bounce."

To categorize the bounce conditions:

For each bounce condition, select a radio button for how you want to categorize that condition -- "Hard," "Soft," or "Temporary."

Note: The only bounce conditions that be categorized as "Temporary" are "content-related," "policy-related," "spam-related," and "virus-related."

Click save.