How to handle bounce and invalid address management for cold lists?
- Proper bounce management protects sender reputation and maintains list quality.
- Hard bounces:
- Permanent delivery failures (user doesn't exist, domain invalid)
- Remove immediately after first occurrence
- Add to permanent suppression list
- Never attempt to send to these addresses again, even from new data sources
- Soft bounces:
- Temporary failures (mailbox full, server temporarily unavailable)
- Retry a limited number of times (most tools handle this automatically)
- After 3 to 5 consecutive soft bounces, treat as hard bounce
- Track patterns to identify problematic domains
- Suppression management:
- Maintain a master list of bounced addresses across all campaigns
- Check new data imports against suppression list before adding
- Sync suppression across all sending tools and sequences
- Monitoring:
- Track bounce rates per campaign and over time
- Investigate sudden spikes (data quality issue or blocklisting)
- Aim for bounce rates under 2% for cold email
- High bounce rates on purchased lists indicate poor data quality
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