A bounced contact means that your mailings have not been delivered to the e-mail address of the contact. When you send out a mailing the bounced contacts are automatically removed from the mailing list.
Bounces are generally divided into two categories – soft or hard.
A soft bounce means that the mailing reaches the recipient’s mail server, but haven’t been delivered to the recipient’s inbox. A Soft bounce can be a temporary bounce and this might be because:
- their e-mail server is overloaded
- their inbox is full
- there is another temporary error
Hard bounces means that your mailings cannot be delivered at all. This might be because:
- the e-mail address is invalid, expired or has been removed
- the e-mail address is misspelled
- the recipient’s e-mail server is down or not responding
- the recipient’s e-mail server suspects the e-mail to be SPAM and will not deliver it
Contacts with a hard bounce (or three soft bounces) will no longer receive future mailings.
Why don’t Ungapped send to bounced addresses?
To avoid burdening recipients' e-mail servers, it’s important to respect bounce reports and not repeatedly send e-mails to bounced contacts. Ignoring these can lead to blacklisting or spam complaints. To prevent this, we track bounces and stop sending e-mails to contacts that hard bounce or repeatedly soft bounce.
How do I reactivate a bounced contact?
If a contact who has bounced reaches out asking why they aren’t receiving your e-mails, you can reactivate them.
- Locate the contact that has bounced.
- Open the contact by clicking on the contact’s name.
- Click at "Restore".
- Close the contact card.
When a bounce is reset, the contact is restored for future mailings only. Past e-mails will not be resent.
How do Ungapped detect bounces?
When an e-mail is sent to a recipient’s server, we usually receive an immediate response indicating whether the e-mail was accepted or could not be delivered. This response is logged, and the logs are processed several times a day (up to a 24-hour delay) before being visible to you. Bounce logs are therefore not updated in real time.
Why do we receive bounce reports Ungapped don’t recognize?
As mentioned, not all responses are instant. Sometimes, the recipient’s server queues the e-mail due to heavy workload. If the e-mail fails to send later, the recipient’s server generates a “non-delivery report” (NDR), indicating delivery failure.
This NDR is sent to the sender address (the "From" address) rather than the reply-to address.
As a result, you might occasionally receive bounce reports directly to your sender address that are not logged in our system.
What is the difference between a sender address and a reply address?
Sender address:
This is the formal sender of the e-mail. It must meet several criteria, such as ensuring the IP address sending e-mails in the domain's name is trusted, and that the e-mail has been encrypted with a specific key. These technologies must be set up before we can send e-mails on behalf of your domain.
When you become our customer, the default setting is that your e-mails are sent using Ungapped domain as the sender. To send e-mails using your own domain, you need to set up the following:
- A bounce inbox, such as mail@yourdomain.com or newsletter@yourdomain.com.
- SPF records in your DNS, authorizing Ungapped to send e-mails on behalf of your domain.
- DKIM records in your DNS, verifying that Ungapped have encrypted the e-mail with a key associated with your domain.
Instructions for setting up SPF and DKIM records can be found under "SPF records" and "DKIM." Once these records are configured for your desired domain, you must notify Ungappeds customer support team, who will update the sender address for your account.
Reply address:
The reply address is the e-mail address where any replies to your message will be sent. By default, a message's reply address is the same as your account's reply address, but you can change it per e-mail template or individual e-mail.
Typically, replies are directed to your customer service, such as info@yourdomain.com.
If you send a more personal e-mail and want recipients responses to go directly to you, use your personal e-mail address as the reply address.
I see a sudden increase in bounces. What should I do?
A sudden increase in bounce rates is often due to one of the following. Review bounce error codes and categories to identify the issue:
- E-mails flagged as spam: This can result from the content, its relevance, or - worst case - Ungapped sender addresses being marked as suspicious. If the error explicitly states "SPAM" related to IP addresses, contact us at Ungapped to ensure these are whitelisted.
- Domain deactivation: Occasionally, major domains shut down, such as comhem.se in 2020. Contact recipients to obtain updated e-mail addresses. Why not send them an sms?
- Domain changes by an organization: If an organization has switched domains, update your contacts.
- Policy changes by large e-mail providers: For example, in 2020, Microsoft updated Exchange Online rules, causing e-mails forwarded to external systems (like Zendesk) to be rejected.
What should I do if an e-mail address I know exists is bouncing?
If you have a good relationship with individuals in the organization, ask them to add your sender address to their contact list.
Encourage this in the first confirmation e-mail a person receives when signing up for your newsletter. Example: "To ensure our newsletters reach you, please add this sender to your contacts."
For larger recipient groups, ask someone in the organization to request their IT department to whitelist your e-mails. They can whitelist by sender address, domain, or IP address (see our IP addresses here).
Can I export bounce reasons for my contacts?
Yes, you can, read more here about Bounced contacts - show bounce reason