{"id":21431,"date":"2020-01-28T16:24:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T16:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/hard-bounce"},"modified":"2026-09-17T12:42:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T12:42:53","slug":"hard-bounce","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/hard-bounce","title":{"rendered":"Hard Bounce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad wp-image-22964 size-full alignright\" style=\"margin-top: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/hard-bounce.jpg\" alt=\"Hard Bounce\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/hard-bounce.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/hard-bounce-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/> <strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A <strong>hard bounce<\/strong> is a permanent failure that prevents an email from being delivered to the recipient&#8217;s address. The receiving server rejects the message because the account, domain or delivery route is permanently invalid.<\/p>\n<p>It differs from a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/soft-bounce\">soft bounce<\/a>, which results from a temporary situation such as a full mailbox or a transient server problem. The precise classification depends on the response code and message returned by the receiving system.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"indexed\">Causes of hard bounce<\/h2>\n<p>A hard bounce is usually associated with an address that cannot receive messages permanently. Common causes include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Non-existent account:<\/strong> The address never existed or has been deleted by its provider.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Address error:<\/strong> The mailbox name contains a typing error that prevents the recipient from being found.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Invalid domain:<\/strong> The domain is misspelled, does not exist or has no working email configuration.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Deactivated address:<\/strong> The account has become permanently unavailable.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Permanent policy rejection:<\/strong> A server may return a permanent code because of its security or reputation rules. Not every block or classification as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/spam\">spam<\/a> is by itself a hard bounce, so the returned response needs to be reviewed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is no universal acceptable percentage for every campaign. An increase in hard bounces may indicate acquisition errors, old data, poor imports or addresses entered without validation.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"indexed\">Consequences to consider<\/h2>\n<p>An address confirmed as a hard bounce should no longer receive new messages. Instead of deleting it without retaining information, platforms commonly add it to a suppression list to prevent retries and preserve a record of the failure.<\/p>\n<p>Repeatedly sending to non-existent addresses wastes resources and may harm sender reputation and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/deliverability\">deliverability<\/a>. It also makes campaign metrics harder to interpret by increasing the number of messages that never had an opportunity to reach a person.<\/p>\n<p>Response codes should be reviewed, obvious errors corrected only when a reliable source is available, and acquisition and validation processes maintained to reduce incorrect addresses. Bounce management helps keep a list operational, but it does not replace consent, sender identification or other requirements that apply to email marketing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: A hard bounce is a permanent failure that prevents an email from being delivered to the recipient&#8217;s address. The receiving server rejects the message because the account, domain or delivery route is permanently invalid. It differs from a soft bounce, which results from a temporary situation such as a full mailbox or a transient [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1373],"class_list":["post-21431","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-email-deliverability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21431","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=21431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}