{"id":21429,"date":"2020-01-28T16:24:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T16:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/soft-bounce"},"modified":"2026-09-17T12:42:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T12:42:56","slug":"soft-bounce","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/soft-bounce","title":{"rendered":"Soft Bounce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad wp-image-23058 size-full alignright\" style=\"margin-top: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/soft-bounce.jpg\" alt=\"Soft Bounce\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/soft-bounce.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/soft-bounce-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A <strong>soft bounce<\/strong> is a temporary failure that prevents an email from being delivered to an address that is expected to be valid.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/email-marketing\">email marketing<\/a> campaign, the receiving server returns a code or message reporting a temporary difficulty. The message may be delivered later if the problem disappears.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"indexed\">Causes of soft bounces<\/h2>\n<p>Soft bounces may be caused by the recipient&#8217;s mailbox, the receiving server, communication between systems or particular characteristics of the message. The most common causes can be grouped into five categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mailbox or account problems:<\/strong> The mailbox is full, the account is temporarily restricted or an incident prevents it from receiving messages at that time.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Server capacity or availability:<\/strong> The receiving system is undergoing maintenance, is not responding, is overloaded or is temporarily limiting connections and messages.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Resolution and transmission:<\/strong> A temporary DNS failure or an interruption in communication between servers prevents delivery from being completed. A non-existent domain usually causes a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/hard-bounce\">hard bounce<\/a>, not a soft bounce.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Message characteristics:<\/strong> The size, attachments, links, format or another content element causes the receiving system to defer or provisionally reject the email.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Temporary security controls:<\/strong> Reputation, frequency or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/spam\">anti-spam<\/a> rules may produce a temporary rejection without declaring the address invalid.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The same incident may be classified differently according to the SMTP code and message returned by the server. The cause should therefore be determined by examining the technical response, rather than relying solely on the <em>soft bounce<\/em> label assigned by the platform.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"indexed\">What happens after a soft bounce<\/h2>\n<p>Two main outcomes may follow a soft bounce:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Later delivery:<\/strong> The message is accepted after the temporary problem has disappeared.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Suppression of further messages:<\/strong> If the problem persists or the response indicates a permanent failure, the address may stop receiving messages and be classified as a hard bounce.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A high or increasing volume of soft bounces may affect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/deliverability\">deliverability<\/a>. It may also reveal problems involving message weight, sending frequency, domain authentication or contact-list quality.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"indexed\">How to reduce soft bounces<\/h2>\n<p>The first step is to examine response codes and determine whether failures are concentrated around a particular domain, campaign, period or type of message. This analysis helps distinguish an occasional incident from a problem involving technical configuration, email content or sending volume.<\/p>\n<p>Reducing message weight, avoiding unnecessary attachments and maintaining correctly configured SPF, DKIM and DMARC records may reduce certain temporary rejections. Sending frequency and distribution should also be reviewed to avoid unusual concentrations. These measures do not guarantee delivery because the receiving server retains the final decision concerning each message.<\/p>\n<p>The contact list should be kept up to date and obtained through appropriate acquisition and validation processes. Bounce trends should be monitored and addresses that fail repeatedly investigated. If the response becomes permanent, the address should stop receiving messages. The objective is to identify unusual patterns before they affect deliverability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: A soft bounce is a temporary failure that prevents an email from being delivered to an address that is expected to be valid. In an email marketing campaign, the receiving server returns a code or message reporting a temporary difficulty. The message may be delivered later if the problem disappears. Causes of soft bounces [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1373],"class_list":["post-21429","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-email-deliverability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}