Managing a Large List of Hard Bounces

Tom_Kerlin2
Level 8

Managing a Large List of Hard Bounces

Hello,

Is there a quick and easy way to analyze a large list of hard bounces? My Bounced Email Addresses system smart list contains 35,000+ emails with email invalid set to true. I'd like to find a way to quickly analyze and differentiate between the emails that are likely "true" hard bounces and the emails that are more than likely "false" hard bounces.

How can I build a smart list so that it finds the "false" hard bounces and build one that will do the same for "true" hard bounces?

Maybe filter by 'email invalid cause' contains "insert bounce code and reason here"?

This is important, since I think it's starting to affect our delivery rates, meaning a decent-sized portion of our lists are no longer receiving the email due to being marked invalid.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

Tom Kerlin
2 REPLIES 2
Josh_Hill13
Level 10 - Champion Alumni

Re: Managing a Large List of Hard Bounces

You should create a View with the fields and then download that to analyze in a pivot table. Take only the fields you need. You'll be able to discover top reason values and maybe setup flows for that.

35k is not very large. I've got a lot more than that.


How would you define False Positives vs. Correct Positives? Marketo kinda does that with it's existing system logic with Email Suspended with certain bounces.

In general, any hard bounce is Invalid. Now, if you do get an Email Bounced Reason, you could unflag the Invalid if you think you should keep mailing to that person. Some servers don't tell you why they bounced, so do you want to risk you reputation by continuing to hammer that email address?

There's a thread on here somewhere with some of the Bounce codes, which you can also find on Google. No list is comprehensive because implementation varies by server.

Your delivery rate is affected by your reputation, which can be partially fixed by cleaning your list and not emailing hard bounces. If you what you mean is that your List Size or Send counts are reduced because of hard bounces, yes, that's true. Always better to have a smaller, engaged list than a giant list of lower deliverability and unengaged leads.

Then you can look at inbox rates once Delivery Rates are fixed.

Tom_Kerlin2
Level 8

Re: Managing a Large List of Hard Bounces

Thanks Josh! Maybe 35k isn't large compared to your database size, but this counts for 18% of our total database. Is there a certain percentage where we should be more concerned? And maybe our CRM, where lists are being pulled from, needs to be cleaned along with scrubbing the lists prior to import?

Tom Kerlin