In this article, we will go through what bounces mean and how you can see what they are caused by.

We will go through:

1. What a bounce means
2. What is a soft bounce
3. What is a hard bounce
4. Bounces for individual subscribers

What a bounce means

After sending an email, you will see a summary of email addresses that have bounced under the 'Bounces' tab in the statistics view. This means that the email did not reach the recipient. The most common reason is that the email was blocked by the recipient's server. To see the number of bounces, follow these steps:

1. Click on 'Statistics'
2. Then choose the time period you want to view the bounce statistics for
3. Click on the dropdown menu
4. Choose the channel, and then the email campaign

If you scroll down on the statistics page, you will see this view. There you will see 'Total bounces', 'Hard bounces', and 'Soft bounces' for the specific email campaign during the chosen time period.

What is a soft bounce

A soft bounce means a failed delivery due to temporary issues with the recipient, such as a full inbox or problems with the recipient's inbox provider.

Good to know:
When an email has bounced more than 3 times to a recipient, the address will be marked in red, meaning it is considered a hard bounce. In addition, the address will be blocked.

If you are on the 'Soft bounces' tab, you will see the subscribers who have one or more soft bounces.

If you click on a subscriber, you can click on the yellow marker to usually see the reason for the bounce.

What is a hard bounce

A hard bounce indicates a permanent reason why emails cannot be delivered to the recipient. There are many reasons for hard bounces, but some common causes are that the email address or domain does not exist, or that the recipient's email server has blocked the delivery of emails.

If you are on the 'Hard bounces' tab, you will see the subscribers who have a hard bounce from the specific email campaign and time period.

Bounces for individual subscribers

To find out why certain mailings have not reached the desired recipient, you can use the search field to find the cause for individual recipients. You do this by clicking on the person's email address or on the "Pen icon" on the customer card, which will display a red and/or yellow field to indicate the level of bounce along with an explanation. See example below: