eConnect Email Help Center

Here are the various types of bounces we capture in our system when you send out a mailing.

Hard Bounces

The mail server could not send/ receive your email. The most common example of a hard bounce is if the user doesn't exist on that domain.

- What we do with "hard bounces"

The application automatically changes the status of each hard bounce to an inactive state and removes the hard bounce from the originating list. The reason for this is that hard bounces are bad email addresses (i.e. no one exists with that address at that domain, or the address itself no longer exists. In other words, the email was completely rejected by the server.)

Soft Bounces

Soft bounces usually indicate the mail server is temporarily unable to accept your email. This usually happens when the user's mailbox is full, the mail server is unable to be reached or the user's inbox has exceeded its quota.

- What we do with "soft bounces"

Soft bounces mostly consist of email addresses that are over their size quota. It's safe to remove these email addresses only if they are repeat offenders over a significant amount of time. For instance, it would be reasonable to remove an email address turning up soft bounces after five consecutive bounces over a month-long period, as they're probably never going to check their email account.

Blocked

The recipient's mail server is blocking you from sending email to them.

Bounces classified as Blocked indicate that our mail server has been blocked from sending emails to the indicated email address. It's safe to remove these addresses after two occurrences of this type of bounce. The important thing to realize here is that by using the application, the number of times you will see this type of bounce will diminish over time. One of the application's purposes is to eliminate our mail servers from being blacklisted by ensuring that you send your email lists out responsibly.

Temporary

The mail server is temporarily unable to deliver your email. It will only remove temporary bounced emails if it occurs a fairly significant number of times.

Auto Reply

An email auto-generated from the recipient that usually indicates that the recipient is out of town or out of the office for the time being. It is safe to leave these emails on your list.

Subscribe

Indicates that somebody is wanting to subscribe to your list.

Unsubscribe

Indicates that somebody is wanting to unsubscribe from your list. Our system will remove all unsubscribes.

Generic

The receiving server was unable to detect what type of bounce the message was. Generic bounces should be handled similarly to soft bounces. As the classification implies, generic bounces offer no information as to what caused the bounce.

Challenge-Response

The recipient subscribes to an email service whose aim is to eliminate all unauthorized emails. The Challenge-Response system works by requiring human intervention in order for emails to reach the intended recipient.

Non

Indicates that the message was not one of the above types of bounces or it was a bounce type that the system couldn't recognize.