If you watched last week’s video, you probably got to thinking, “Hey, I probably have dirty data lurking in my subscriber list, but how do I go about cleaning it up?” And we will go over that step by step starting with managing bounces.
Bounces happen when you send out your emails to your list and, for many reasons, the recipient never received it.
I put bounces into two buckets: soft bounces and hard bounces.
Basically, soft bounces happen when the recipient didn’t get the email because their inbox was too full, the server was down, or it was blocked. This happens when I send an email with an attached image to my husband’s work, which is a .mil email address. Sometimes he gets it but the attachment was stripped and other times he doesn’t get it at all. So there’s nothing wrong with the email address per se, it’s still valid, but the recipient temporarily cannot receive the email.
A hard bounce occurs when the email address no longer exists either because of a typo, fake account, or the person deleted the account, the company went out of business and domain was deleted. These are considered permanently undeliverable and they should be removed from your list.
In this video, I talk about bounced emails, how to decrease your hard bounces, walk you through what to track (and what industry averages to keep in line with), and how to delete bounced emails.
If you watched last week’s video, you probably got to thinking, “Hey I probably have dirty data lurking in my subscriber list, but how do I go about cleaning it up?” And we will go over that step by step in the next 3 weeks, starting with managing bounces.
First, if you didn’t get the tracking sheet from last week, you can go ahead and grab that because you’ll see a space in there to track your bounce rate and we will be going over some reporting today. Analyzing that bounce rate will give you clues about your list.
Bounces happen when you send out your emails to your list and, for many reasons, the recipient never received it.
I put bounces into two buckets: soft bounces and hard bounces.
Basically, soft bounces happen when the recipient didn’t get the email because their inbox was too full, the server was down, or it was blocked. This happens when I send an email with an attached image to my husband’s work, which is a .mil email address. Sometimes he gets it, but the attachment was stripped and other times he doesn’t get it at all. So there’s nothing wrong with the email address per se, it’s still valid, but the recipient temporarily cannot receive the email.
A hard bounce occurs when the email address no longer exists either because of a typo, fake account, or the person deleted the account, the company went out of business and the domain was deleted. These are considered permanently undeliverable and they should be removed from your list.
Ways to decrease the bounce rate
First of all, realize that address turnover rates are around 30% per year. People close one account and open up another, they change their preferred email address. Three things you can do to prevent hard bounces:
- enable confirmed or double opt-in, which is where they confirm their email to be on your list. If they don’t click on the link, they aren’t on your list.
- Provide an easy way for people to update their email address using an update link on each email.
- Do not purchase lists.
Needless to say, it’s important to send emails to your list often. If you go months without sending emails, you run the risk of having a large percentage of bounces which not only affects your deliverability rate, which is something that your list manager keeps a very close eye on because it affects their reputation, but you can get blacklisted.
[Demo of checking stats removing bounces]
Next week we’ll cover more systems on how to clean up your list, see you then.
Catch up on other Building and Maintaining a Clean List episodes:

Sign up for my free simple systems for virtual assistants weekly videos and get this Free Download

Did you enjoy this episode and want to put it into action? Grab this kit!
SOP Templates & Process Library
$45.00
This standard operating procedures kit includes:
- List of Common SOPs giving you samples of what areas can be included in your SOPs or company manual
- Standard Operating Procedures Library including 24 examples
- Sample Standard Operating Procedures Manual
- How to do an affiliate payout
- Chargeback procedure
- Email signature
- Resources and FAQ
- Email Management flowchart
- Handling declined payments
- Help desk procedures
- How to create a project plan flowchart
- How to send a broadcast
- Introductory / Discovery sessions flowchart
- New client setup (for both products and services)
- New team member onboarding checklist
- Newsletter process
- Overcoming sales objections flowchart
- Recording InstantTeleseminar events
- Refund procedure
- Sample JV Partnership flowchart
- Selecting a CRM/Database flowchart
- Task management flowchart
- Weekly blog posts
- Weekly tasks
All the examples are in Word or Powerpoint format so they are fully editable. The included SOPs are meant to give you a starting point, they are SAMPLE documents to show you what an SOP (standard operations procedure) for business processes looks like. Use the sections and headings to create your OWN. Please edit this document for your business; delete what doesn’t work for your business and add whatever you need to.
0 Comments