Bounce rates are the bane of email marketers’ existences. They cause a myriad of complications for campaigns, and can be the result of a number of issues. It’s therefore important to find solutions before this problem severely damages your strategy. Here are a few ways you can stop them dead in their tracks.

Rethink the copy

With the surge in spam, email clients have developed systems that filter out junk email known as Bayesian filtering. Basically it looks at phrase combinations and filters out words such as casino, life insurance and mortgage. You may already know this, but the systems also penalise emails that appear in junk mail too, especially those that might contain words such as free, sale, limited time and click now.

As an email marketer, you need to identify potential words that might count against you. Rethinking your content strategy will go towards ensuring that Bayesian filtering doesn’t impact your delivery rate.

Send emails consistently and regularly 

Your audience needs consistency in what you send them. Not only is it with regards to your content, but also with frequency of emails. This is to say you have to stay in contact with them regularly and at times they’re more likely to interact with you. Seldom communication, like an email a month, can result in a 4.4% bounce rate. However, sending emails frequently – once every day – leads to a lower 0.4% bounce rate.

Use a double opt-in strategy

Unsolicited emails can seriously damage your email campaign. The key is getting permission from your audience to send them content. This ensures that no one marks it as spam and you don’t get low opens and high unsubscribes.

The best way to ensure you’re sending to a list that wants to receive your email is to provide double opt-in or email verification processes. It might mean that a potential sign up might have to take extra steps to become a subscriber. However, those who do follow through with the verification process are more likely to engage and less likely to mark your content as spam or unsubscribe.

Segment your list and avoid canvassing

If you have a large database, chances are it can be split into different groups. These groups probably have differing interests, which determines what kind of content they want to consume. If you send the entire group a standardised mailer, there’s a high likelihood you’re going to get people marking it as spam and unsubscribing.

To remedy this, you need to segment your lists according to demographics such as age as well as interests. Once you have done so, create a content strategy that targets these different groups with content that appeals to them.

Clean up your code

What an email looks like when it’s in a recipient’s inbox can be very different to what the email client’s spam filter is seeing. That’s to say a filter can see poorly formatted emails, and can decide whether to allow them through or send them packing.

Always ensure that your code is clean and formatted correctly. Try avoiding copy and pasting code, as this can result in the format falling out of place.

Email bounce rates can be lowered. Email marketers just need to identify potential issues that will count against them such as those highlighted above. Once done, you should do your best to remedy your emails using best practice. The results will speak for themselves.