Reducing Email Bounces
An average email bounce rate, according to Melissa Data, is in the 2-3% range every month. This can cause a loss of as much as 36% of your subscribers over a one year time period.
Not all bounces are alike.
Bounces are referred to as hard or soft. A soft bounce comes back before it reaches the addressee’s inbox. The email address is valid, but the inbox may be full, their server might be down, or your message is too large to be delivered. With a soft bounce, it is likely that you could email the recipient at another time and your email would be delivered.
A hard bounce occurs when the email address isn’t valid. While occasionally this comes about due to a problem with your subscriber’s network, in most cases it is because a fake email address has been used. With a hard bounce, you will most likely get the same result if you emailed the recipient again.
If you get a lot of soft bounces, chances are you have “tire kickers”, who want to get the information you are offering, but don’t want to give you their “good” email addresses. Instead, they opt to use throwaway email addresses. To cut down on this, be sure to evaluate your opt-in page, offer, and the manner in which your material is delivered.
For instance, do you automatically forward subscribers to your opt-in page upon sign-up? If so, test delivery after they’ve confirmed their opt-in requesst. In other words, make sure they can’t take delivery of your offer until they’ve opted in with a real email address.
If you require your visitor to opt-in in order to access your blog or certain sections of your website, why not test adding a link that allows them to bypass this requirement? Think of it this way. If you just met someone, would you be a bit wary if they asked for your phone number before you knew anything about them? Probably so!
Hard bounces are another story. With a hard bounce, that email is NOT getting delivered. While entering invalid email addresses is one cause, another frequent cause is email address churn. Email addresses turn over all the time. People move and change ISPs, then start over again with a new email address.
A few things you can employ include:
- Ask for an alternative email. (Yahoo does this when signing up for their services.)
- Offer a report annually or bi-annually, which can only be physically delivered. In this way, they will have to provide you with additional contact information (perhaps, even a phone number), which can be used as needed.
- Hold a contest and request a phone number so the winner can be notified by phone.
- Encourage readers to subscribe to your RSS feed.
What techniques do you employ to reduce list churn?
Debbi Bressler
Email Marketing Specialist
GetResponse
Tags
email marketing, email, autoresponders
