Causes of High Bounce Rates

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If you see a high bounce rate in your campaign report, there are several reasons why this may be happening.

In this article, you'll learn about some common causes of high bounce rates.

Your import had formatting errors

We recommend you review .CSV files for formatting errors before you import contacts, so you don't add extra information to important fields in your audience. Formatting errors in the email address field can cause hard bounces.

You're using a free email service for your From email address

In an effort to stop fraudulent emails, certain email providers have changed their DMARC policies. If you're using a free email service like Yahoo or Gmail for your From email address, it will fail DMARC authentication, causing emails sent to receiving servers that check for DMARC to bounce. We strongly recommend an email address from a private domain like the one you use for work or your website.

Your audience is outdated

If you see high bounce rates and your audience is relatively new or not regularly used, it may include stale or inactive addresses.

Stale addresses are either invalid or belong to contacts who signed up for your email marketing a long time ago and haven't been sent to regularly. If you think your audience might include stale addresses, reconfirm your subscribers.

Inactive subscribed contacts, however, may still be interested in your content, but don't actively click links or make purchases. We recommend that you send a re-engagement campaign to spark your inactive contacts' interest. For example, you could segment your audience based on e-commerce activity and send a promotional offer to contacts who haven't made a purchase in the past year. Then, you'd monitor the results of that campaign and decide whether to remove the contacts who remain inactive.

Your audience contains bad data

If your new audience is showing high bounce rates, there may be a problem with where your contacts came from or how they were compiled. Take some time to determine if your audience is okay to use.

About Bounces

Learn about bounces and how to maintain a healthy Mailchimp audience.

Examples of Compliant and Non-Compliant Lists

We provide common examples to help decide if your email list is ok to use with Mailchimp.

Soft vs. Hard Bounces

When an email is rejected by an email server, it's called a bounce. Learn about the different types of bounces and how to abide by spam laws.