Bounce Handling and List Hygiene
Every email list slowly decays as people change jobs, abandon addresses or mistype them at sign-up. Bounce handling and list hygiene are the practices that keep your list clean, your reputation strong and your messages reaching real people.
Ignoring bounces is one of the surest ways to damage your sender reputation and end up in the spam folder.
Hard vs Soft Bounces
Not all bounces mean the same thing, and they call for different responses.
- Hard bounce: a permanent failure, such as a non-existent address — remove it at once.
- Soft bounce: a temporary issue, such as a full mailbox — retry, then remove if it persists.
- Complaints: recipients marking you as spam — suppress them immediately.
Keeping a List Healthy
Good hygiene is ongoing, not a one-off clean-up.
- Use confirmed opt-in so addresses are valid from the start.
- Process bounces automatically after each send.
- Periodically re-engage or remove inactive subscribers.
- Never buy or rent lists, which are full of bad addresses.
Frequently Asked Questions
What bounce rate is acceptable?
Aim to keep it below two percent. Consistently higher rates signal a list-quality problem that filters will notice.
If you need a hand with any of this, your Progressive Robot delivery team is ready to help. Raise a ticket from the Support area of your client portal or speak to your account manager and we will guide you through the next steps.