Share your average bounce rates

The question came up on slack this morning about bounce rate benchmarks. What are the normal / average bounces that different ESPs see? Does region matter? What’s acceptable for bounce rates?

Bounce rate is an overall measure of address quality

Here’s your the chance for ESPs share the data from your customers. We’re interested in anything you care to share. But more detail is always helpful. Some suggestions:

  • Overall bounce rate for 2018.
  • Bounce rate for 2018 compared to 2017.
  • Rate by month.
  • Rate by region (US, EMEA, AsiaPac, etc).
  • Rate by industry.
  • Bounce rates that make you sit up and take notice.

Feel free to add any other numbers. This is just an informal poll of readers.

Anonymization / Privacy note for this post: Generally I don’t approve comments from clearly forged or fake email addresses. If you want your comment to stay anonymous, use an address that’s not been previously approved and it will go into moderation. Please let me know who you are in the text and I will edit before approving the post.

Related Posts

Bounce handling simplified

I am a strong believer that bounce handling should be designed to remove addresses that have no human on the other end while not removing addresses that have a real recipient on the other end.
Bounce handling should be designed to appropriately manage your subscriber base. Delivery problems are the consequence if you don’t do that. They shouldn’t be the reason you bounce handle, though.
Context matters.
My experience tells me that senders that think about the impact of their sends can do things that “break the rules” while still being respectful of their subscribers and still see good delivery.

Read More

What’s a bounce?

Bounces and bounce handling is one of those topics I’ve avoided writing about for a long time. Part of my avoidance is because there are decades of confusing terminology that hasn’t ever been really defined. Untangling that terminology is the first step to being able to talk sensibly about what to do. Instead of writing a giant long post, I can break it into smaller, more focused posts.

Read More

Bounces, complaints and metrics

In the email delivery space there are a lot of numbers we talk about including bounce rates, complaint rates, acceptance rates and inbox delivery rates. These are all good numbers to tell us about a particular campaign or mailing list. Usually these metrics all track together. Low bounce rates and low complaint rates correlate with high delivery rates and high inbox placement.

Read More