Email Best Practices: Bounces, Unsubscribes and Complaints 

Bounces, Unsubscribes and Complaints

Bounces

There are two kinds of "bounces".

Soft bounce

Temporary conditions with the contact's ESP (Email Service Provider), including a full mailbox, an inbox "spam protector" autoresponder that requires senders to respond to a verification email in order to make it into the inbox, the ESP being temporarily down, or a 3rd party spam-blocker on their local computer.

Hard bounces

Hard bounces happen due to a bad email address, or 4 soft-bounces.

Unsubscribes

Unsubscribes happen when a person clicks the "Unsubscribe" link that appears mandatorily at the bottom of all your bulk emails. Of course, if a person complains they will also be unsubscribed from your sequences and their bulk email status will change to "No."

Complaints

Complaints are BAD for your email marketing health. Don't get them. Your contacts can complain in one of two ways.

1. They click the "This is Spam" (or similar) button right within their email program.
2. They click the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of an email and then (rather than merely opting out of receiving future mailings) they click the "Report Abuse" button at the bottom of the unsubscription page.

FAQs

Some questions we've heard...

"Can I make a list of people who have opted out of receiving emails from me so that I will not accidentally send to them in the future?"

"How can I change the link text for the unsubscribe link at the bottom of my bulk emails?"

"How many hard bounces/complaints can I get before being kicked off of the system?"

"What happens when contacts unsubscribe or complain? Do they continue to be mailed?"

"I keep hearing all of this talk of hard and soft bounces. What are they? How are they different?"

"Do the bounce and complaint rules still apply to private IP customers?"

Relevant Links

• Anti-Spam Policy
• List Management
• Can I use this list?
• Getting Permission
• Setting Expectations
• The Value of Engagement
• Single vs. Confirmed Opt-in
• HTML vs. Text
• HTML for Email
• Measuring your Success
• Bounces and Complaints
• Account Approval Process
• Email Deliverability

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