What is email bounce rate?
Email bounce rate is the percentage of people or email addresses who didn’t receive your email or we can say, the emails that did not successfully reach your recipients.
How to calculate bounce rate?
To calculate the bounce rate of an email, divide the ‘number of emails bounced’ by the ‘number of emails sent’ and multiply by 100. You’ll get the percentage of bounced emails.
Email marketing platforms and email service providers usually calculate this for you.
Formula for calculating bounce rate
Real-life example of bounce rate
Let’s take an example of bounce rate:
Say, you sent an email to 100 people and 2 of them weren’t delivered, which means 98 emails got successfully delivered. Now, your bounce rate will be: 2/100 x 100 = 2%
What’s considered a good bounce rate? (benchmark)
A good bounce rate for emails is considered to be less than 2%. The lesser, the better. If your bounce rate is between 2%-5%, you need to pay attention to your email campaign. If the bounce rate increases to 5% or more, there might be a major problem waiting for you.
A high bounce rate is a major red flag and will hurt your sender’s reputation, ultimately leading your emails to the recipient's spam folder.
According to Mailchimp’s 2022 report, the average soft bounce rate is 0.58% and the hard bounce rate is 0.40% for all industries.
For an industry-wise report, check out: 2022 Email Marketing Benchmarks
Ways to reduce your bounce rate
- Cleanse and review your email list frequently: Your email list may stack up with inactive or invalid email addresses over time. Doing a quick tidy-up of your email list will keep it updated leading to a low bounce rate. Want more reasons to scrub your list? Read this: Why should you clean your email list?
- Make use of double opt-ins: Double opt-in feature let people confirm their email addresses while subscribing to your mailing list. This will help ensure that users feed the correct email address when they sign up and you’ll be safe from invalid or inactive email addresses in your list. Wondering how to set up double opt-in? Read: How to Set Up Double Opt-In
- Don’t craft spammy content: Don’t use content that may signal as spam to email providers to avoid landing in your recipient's spam box. Your email may get blocked by your recipient's email providers if it sounds spammy, causing your email marketing bounce rate to rise. Read this guide to prevent your email from landing in spam box: 12-Step Guide On How To Prevent Emails From Going To Spam