Email bounce rate: Definition, benchmarks, and how to lower it

Your team spends weeks crafting the perfect email campaign. The copy is sharp, the design is clean, and the offer is compelling. But what happens when a significant portion of those emails never even reach an inbox? This is the hidden cost of a high email bounce rate, a metric that directly impacts your sender reputation, wastes marketing spend, and undermines your campaign results.

Understanding and controlling your bounce rate is critical for sustainable growth. This guide breaks down exactly what you need to know. We will explore the difference between hard and soft bounces, industry benchmarks, and the root causes of delivery failures. You will also learn 7 actionable strategies to reduce bounces and protect your sender reputation.

Key takeaways

• Maintain a low bounce rate to protect sender reputation and inbox placement.
• Remove hard bounces immediately and clean your email list monthly to prevent deliverability problems.
• High bounce rates directly impact revenue by reducing the number of people who see your campaigns.
• Focus on engagement-based segmentation and authentication setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to improve deliverability.
• AI-powered platforms like monday campaigns use native CRM integration to automatically maintain clean lists and prevent bounces before they happen.

What is email bounce rate?

Email bounce rate is the percentage of emails that fail to reach recipients’ inboxes. This means the recipient’s server returned the email to you because it could not deliver it — like postal mail marked “return to sender.”

Most email platforms calculate this automatically, but understanding what it means helps you spot problems early.

Why should you care about bounce rates? High bounce rates damage your sender reputation with email providers. When too many emails bounce, providers like Gmail and Outlook start sending your messages straight to spam — even for people who want to hear from you.

How to calculate email bounce rate

Calculating email bounce rate uses this simple formula:

If you send 5,000 emails and 100 bounce, you have a 2% bounce rate. Remember, bounced emails are different from emails that land in spam. A bounce means the email never reached any inbox at all. Spam placement means a server delivered the email, but an inbox filter moved it away from the main inbox.

The true cost of high bounce rates

High bounce rates hurt your business in 3 specific ways. Understanding these costs helps you prioritize fixing bounce issues before they spiral out of control:

1. Damaged sender reputation: Email providers track bounce rates closely, and consistently high levels can trigger blocking or blacklisting.
2. Wasted marketing spend: Every bounced email represents money spent on someone who never saw your message.
3. Skewed campaign metrics: You can’t accurately measure campaign success when a chunk of your audience never receives your emails.

Hard bounces vs. soft bounces: What's the difference?

Not all bounces are created equal. Hard bounces are permanent failures — the email address doesn’t exist or will never accept mail. Soft bounces are temporary problems that might fix themselves.

What causes emails to hard bounce

Hard bounces happen for permanent reasons. Once you get a hard bounce, that address will never work. Here are the main culprits:

• Invalid email addresses: Typos like “gmial.com” or fake addresses like “[email protected]”
• Deleted accounts: Email addresses that no longer exist
• Blocked domains: Some companies block all emails from certain senders permanently
• Spam traps: Hidden addresses used to catch bad senders

What causes emails to soft bounce

Soft bounces are temporary setbacks. The email address exists, but something prevented delivery right now. Common causes include:

• Full mailbox: The recipient has too many emails already.
• Server problems: Their email provider is temporarily down.
• Message too large: Your email exceeded their size limit.
• Temporary blocks: You sent too many emails too quickly.

Most soft bounces resolve within 72 hours. But watch for patterns; if an address soft bounces repeatedly, it’s time to remove it.

How to deal with different bounce types

Your response should match the bounce type. Here’s exactly what to do:

For hard bounces:

1. Remove the address from all lists immediately.
2. Add it to your suppression list.
3. Never try to email it again.

For soft bounces:

1. Let your system retry 3-5 times over 72 hours.
2. Track which addresses bounce repeatedly.
3. Remove any address that soft bounces 5+ times in a row.

Email bounce rate benchmarks by industry

If you’re wondering what a normal bounce rate is, it depends on your industry. B2B companies typically see lower rates because business emails change less often. Consumer brands face higher rates as people abandon personal email addresses.

Here’s what to expect:

Although bounce rate expectations vary by industry, inbox providers ultimately apply the same deliverability standards across the board.

What is an acceptable bounce rate

These standards generally fall into 3 clear ranges:

Some email providers enforce these thresholds more aggressively than others.

How modern privacy changes impact benchmarks

Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection changed how we measure email success, but bounce rates remain reliable. Bounces happen at the server level, before any privacy features affect tracking. Because of this, bounce rate remains one of the most trustworthy deliverability metrics.

Platforms like monday campaigns adapt by prioritizing engagement and revenue signals beyond opens, tracking the full journey from email to sale.

Why emails bounce: Root causes and how to fix them

Understanding why emails bounce helps you fix the root cause, not just the symptom. Most bounces fall into 3 categories: technical problems, list quality issues, or engagement triggers.

Technical delivery failures

Technical issues stop emails before they even reach the recipient’s server. These problems often require IT help but are usually fixable:

• Missing authentication: Your emails lack proper SPF, DKIM, or DMARC records
• Blacklisted IP address: Your sending reputation is damaged
• DNS errors: Your domain isn’t properly configured
• Spam-like content: Certain words or formatting trigger automatic blocks

The fix: Work with your IT team to set up proper authentication records and monitor your sender reputation through tools like Google Postmaster. Most technical issues resolve quickly once you identify and address the specific configuration problem.

Email list quality issues

Poor list quality causes most bounce problems. These issues compound over time if you don’t address them:

• Purchased lists: Never buy email lists — they’re full of invalid addresses
• Old data: Email addresses decay naturally as people change jobs or providers
• Bad sign-up forms: Forms without validation let typos slip through

The fix: Build your list organically and prioritize quality over volume.

Engagement and content triggers

Low engagement doesn’t directly cause bounces, but it leads to them. When people ignore your emails, providers notice. They start filtering you to spam. Eventually, they may block you entirely.

Common engagement killers include:

• Irrelevant content: Sending the wrong message to the wrong person
• Too many emails: Overwhelming subscribers until they tune out
• Misleading subject lines: Breaking trust with clickbait
• Poor timing: Sending when your audience isn’t checking email

The fix: Segment your audience based on behavior and preferences, and send targeted content that matches their preferences.

7 strategies to reduce your email bounce rate

Ready to fix your bounce rate? These 7 strategies address the root causes and deliver quick improvements. Each one tackles a specific problem, and together they create a comprehensive solution.

1. Set up double opt-in verification

Double opt-in adds an extra confirmation step. After someone signs up, they must click a link in a confirmation email and only then do they join your list.

This extra step filters out misspelled email addresses, fake sign-ups, and people who weren’t really interested in signing up to begin with.

You may get fewer sign-ups initially, but those who confirm are real people with real email addresses who have real interest in your brand.

2. Implement regular list cleaning

List cleaning isn’t optional — it’s essential maintenance. Like changing oil in your car, regular cleaning prevents bigger problems later.

Remove hard bounces monthly, soft bounces quarterly, and long-term inactive subscribers twice per year. Using AI-powered email campaign software, contact updates flow automatically between systems, keeping your lists synchronized.

3. Authenticate with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

Email authentication proves you’re allowed to send from your domain. Think of it as showing ID at the door — without it, many servers won’t let you in.

These 3 protocols work together:

• SPF: Lists which servers can send for your domain
• DKIM: Adds a digital signature to verify your emails
• DMARC: Tells receivers what to do with failed authentication

4. Create engagement-based segments

Not all subscribers are equally engaged. Segmenting by engagement level helps you send the right message to the right person. Consider creating segments for the highly engaged, moderately engaged, and fully disengaged.

Tailor your approach to each segment. For example, send your best content to engaged subscribers, try win-back campaigns for the disengaged, and remove those who never respond.

5. Monitor your sender reputation score

A high sender reputation score leads to more reliable delivery, while low scores increase spam filtering. Key factors affecting reputation include:

• Bounce rates: High bounces signal poor list quality.
• Spam complaints: Even a few complaints hurt significantly.
• Engagement rates: Low opens and clicks suggest unwanted email.
• Sending consistency: Sudden volume spikes look suspicious.

Monitor your reputation through your email platform or third-party services like monday campaigns, which provides real-time reputation monitoring with alerts for issues.

6. Launch strategic re-engagement campaigns

Before removing inactive subscribers, try winning them back. Re-engagement campaigns give subscribers one last chance to stay connected.

Here are some effective re-engagement tactics:

• Personal subject lines: “We miss you, [Name]”
• Exclusive offers: Special deals for returning subscribers
• Preference updates: Let them choose email frequency
• Clear expectations: Explain what they’ll receive going forward

7. Run pre-send testing workflows

Catch problems before they affect your whole list with pre-send testing and make it part of every campaign. Here’s a checklist:

With software like monday campaigns, you get built-in testing that runs automatically, so you can catch issues early without adding steps to your workflow.

How bounce rates impact revenue and deliverability

High bounce rates don’t just affect individual campaigns — they damage your entire email program. Understanding these connections helps justify investment in better list management.

The bounce rate to inbox placement connection

Email providers use bounce rates as a trust signal. Cross certain thresholds, and they stop trusting you entirely. As bounce rates rise, inbox placement drops and filtering becomes more aggressive. Once your reputation drops, recovery takes months of careful management. Prevention is far easier than repair.

Measuring revenue impact of poor deliverability

Let’s put real numbers to the problem. Say you have 50,000 subscribers and your average order value is $75.

Even a modest bounce rate can cost you 1,000 potential customers per campaign. If just 1% would have purchased, that’s $750 in lost revenue per send. Send weekly? That’s $39,000 annually.

But the real cost is higher. Poor deliverability means even delivered emails might hit spam, multiplying your losses.

Building your bounce prevention framework

Create a systematic approach to bounce prevention. Your framework should include:

• Baseline metrics: Know your starting point
• Automated workflows: Handle bounces without manual work
• Regular maintenance: Schedule cleaning and monitoring
• Alert systems: Get notified of unusual spikes
• Clear protocols: Document how to handle different scenarios

AI solutions for predictive bounce management

AI transforms bounce management from reactive to proactive. Instead of cleaning up after bounces, you prevent them before they happen by analyzing patterns humans miss and spotting risky addresses before you hit send.

Key AI capabilities that reduce bounces include:

• Predictive risk scoring: Identifies addresses likely to bounce and flags inactive contacts before they decay
• Real-time campaign protection: Stops sends automatically when bounce rates spike to protect your sender reputation
• Automated list hygiene: Cleans lists continuously and optimizes content to avoid spam triggers

AI-powered software monitors campaigns in real time, pausing problematic sends mid-flight and adjusting delivery speed when bounce rates spike. It handles list maintenance automatically — removing risky addresses, adjusting send frequency based on engagement, and alerting you to authentication issues before they damage your reputation.

Transform your email performance with monday campaigns

Built on the monday Work OS and integrated with monday CRM, monday campaigns brings together everything you need for healthy email deliverability. The platform combines AI intelligence, CRM integration, and automated workflows to keep bounce rates low and engagement high.

AI-powered segmentation for targeting

Smart segmentation means sending to people who actually want your emails. With monday campaigns, AI helps you create dynamic segments that can update automatically.

The AI analyzes who is opening and clicking, what customers buy and when, and lifecycle stage to suggest segments with naturally lower bounce rates. This way, you’re always sending to valid, engaged contacts.

Native CRM integration for data accuracy

Bad data causes most bounce problems, but monday campaigns solves this through native CRM integration.

Benefits of integration:

• Real-time updates: Contact changes sync instantly
• Single source of truth: No duplicate or conflicting data
• Complete visibility: See the full customer journey

When sales updates a contact, marketing gets the change immediately. No more sending to old addresses.

Real-time analytics and optimization

Real-time insights include bounce tracking, automated alerts, and performance trends so you can spot patterns across campaigns.

This visibility lets you act fast when issues arise. Stop a problematic send, adjust your approach, or investigate unusual patterns before they damage your reputation.

From campaign metrics to revenue intelligence

Bounce rates affect your bottom line, which is why monday campaigns connects email metrics to revenue outcomes, showing the real impact of deliverability.

The platform tracks:

• Revenue per email: See how deliverability affects sales.
• Customer lifetime value: Assess the long-term impact of engagement.
• ROI by segment: Understand which audiences drive profits.

This complete view helps you make the business case for better list management. When executives see the revenue impact, bounce prevention becomes a priority.

Take control of your email bounce rate today

Email bounce rates aren’t just a technical metric — they’re a direct line to your revenue and sender reputation. Every bounce represents a missed opportunity, and high bounce rates compound into serious deliverability problems that take months to fix. The good news? You now have a clear roadmap.

With monday campaigns, you can combines AI intelligence with native CRM integration to keep your lists clean, your reputation strong, and your emails landing in inboxes. Stop fighting bounce rates manually and start preventing them automatically.