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In email marketing, a “transient bounce,” also known as a “soft bounce,” refers to a temporary failure to deliver an email to a recipient. Unlike permanent bounces, transient bounces suggest a temporary issue that may be resolved in the future. Common reasons for transient bounces include:

1. Mailbox Full: The recipient’s mailbox may be full, preventing it from accepting new emails. Once the recipient frees up space in their mailbox, future emails may be delivered successfully.
2. Temporary Server Issues: The email server at the recipient’s end might be experiencing temporary problems, such as being temporarily unreachable or undergoing maintenance.
3. Message Size Exceeded: Some email servers have restrictions on the size of incoming emails. If the email exceeds the maximum allowed size, it may result in a transient bounce.
4. Greylisting: Some mail servers use greylisting as an anti-spam technique. When an email is initially sent, the recipient’s server may respond with a temporary failure, expecting the sending server to retry after a specific period. Legitimate email servers typically attempt redelivery, while many spam senders do not.
5. DNS Issues: Transient bounces can occur if there are temporary issues with the Domain Name System (DNS), making it challenging for the sending server to locate the recipient’s mail server.

It’s important for email marketers to distinguish between transient bounces and permanent bounces. While permanent bounces warrant removing the email address from the mailing list, transient bounces may resolve themselves over time.

In email marketing, a “permanent bounce” refers to the situation where an email cannot be delivered to a particular recipient, and the failure is considered permanent. This typically happens when the email address is invalid, no longer exists, or is consistently rejecting the messages. Permanent bounces are also known as “hard bounces.”

There are various reasons why an email might permanently bounce:

1. Invalid Email Address: The email address provided is not correctly formatted or does not exist.
2. Domain Does Not Exist: The domain part of the email address (after the “@” symbol) does not correspond to a valid domain on the internet.
3. Mailbox Does Not Exist: The email server cannot find a mailbox associated with the given email address.
4. Mailbox Is Full: The recipient’s mailbox has reached its storage limit, and no more emails can be accepted.
5. Blocked by Server: The email server or spam filter at the recipient’s end has blocked the email.

It’s important for email marketers to regularly clean their email lists by removing addresses that result in permanent bounces. This helps improve email deliverability rates and ensures that future email campaigns reach the intended audience.

To view the bounce report of a campaign in MailBluster, go to the Report section of your campaign dashboard, you will find a metric called Bounce Rate. It shows the percentage of emails that failed to be delivered to the recipients, indicating issues with email list quality and delivery effectiveness. By clicking on Activity > Bounced, you will be able to see the detailed bounced report.

Here, we have clicked on Activity > Bounced.

Then, click on View: All. Both hard-bounced and soft-bounced listed here. Using this filter, you can view hard-bounced and soft-bounced leads from your sent campaign.

Bounced emails can trigger Amazon SES to block your service if your bounce rate gets too high. Amazon Web Services (AWS), which offers a reliable bulk email service called AWS SES. It had a hard bounce rate of 10%. A hard bounce occurs when an email can’t be delivered for permanent reasons, like if the email address is fake, the domain isn’t valid, or the recipient’s server won’t accept emails. So, if out of 1000 emails sent, 100 were fake or invalid and bounced, AWS SES would block your SES service by temporarily suspending sending privileges.

Here’s how AWS SES works whenever a Email is bounced:

Learn how to remove bounced leads from your campaigns in MailBluster. Start by creating a Standard Segment using the bounced leads activity condition. Once you create the segment, select all leads within it and delete them to clean your brand’s email list.

The following steps will guide you to remove the bounced leads or email addresses from your Brand completely:

1. Go to Brand > Segments then create a Standard Segment name Bounced Leads. Set the bounced leads activity condition as shown below. Select Leads match: “Any“, Campaign activity to “was bounced“, and “any of the selected campaigns“. Then, select those campaigns which whose leads were bounced. Click Create segment.

2. A Standard Segment with Bounced Leads will be created as shown below. Then click on the segment named Bounced Leads.

3. You will see a list of Bounced Leads (email addresses) which will appear under that segment. Now click on the check box where it has been highlighted by red marker.

4. After clicking the highlighted checkbox, all the Bounced Leads will be selected. If you have more than hundred leads then click Select all leads – this will select all the bounced leads under that segment.

5. Click on Bulk action and then select Delete leads.

6. A confirmation dialogue box will appear. Click Delete. All the bounced leads will now be permanently deleted from the entire segment.

7. Now click on the highlighted check box and then Delete segment to remove the segment name Bounced Leads from MailBluster.

8. Finally confirm it by clicking Delete to remove the segment from MailBluster.

Using this method ensures that your email list remains clean, improves deliverability, and prevents future bounce issues. Additionally, regularly checking bounced leads helps maintain a healthy sender reputation.

If you want to remove all the complaint email addresses from your campaigns, you need to create a Standard Segment using the complaint leads activity condition. When the segment is created, you need to select all the leads of that segment and then delete them.

The following steps will guide you to remove the complaint leads or email addresses from your Brand completely:

1. Go to Brand > Segments then create a Standard Segment name Complaint LEADS. Set the complaint leads activity condition as shown below. Select Leads match: “Any“, Campaign activity to “complained“, and “any of the selected campaigns“. Then, select those campaigns whose leads bounced. Click Create segment.

2. A Standard Segment with Complaint Leads will be created as shown below. Then click on the segment named Complaint LEADS.

3. You will see a list of Complaint Leads (email addresses) which will appear under that segment. Now click on the check box where it has been highlighted by red marker.

4. After clicking the highlighted checkbox, all the Complaint Leads will be selected. If you have more than hundred leads then click Select all leads – this will select all the complained leads under that segment.

5. Click on Bulk action and then select Delete leads.

6. A confirmation dialogue box will appear. Click Delete. All the complained leads will now be permanently deleted from the segment.

7. Now click on the highlighted check box and then Delete segment to remove the segment name Complaint LEADS from MailBluster.

8. Finally confirm it by clicking Delete to remove the segment from MailBluster.

Cleaning your email list is essential for maintaining high deliverability rates, improving engagement, and reducing bounce rates.

You can use reliable email validating tools to clean up your email/lead lists. Here are some popular choices:

1. JitBit Free Email List Cleaner
2. EmailListVerify
3. MailerCheck
4. NeverBounce
5. ZeroBounce
6. Clearout
7. Email Verifier
8. MailFloss
9. Mailgun

A healthy email list can enhance your email marketing efforts, ensuring that your messages reach interested and engaged recipients.

A list-unsubscribe header is a field in the header of an email, which adds an “Unsubscribe” link or button in the email client’s interface. This provides recipients with an easy and straightforward way to opt out of future emails, without needing to search for an unsubscribe option within the email content itself. The following is an example of list-unsubscribe header.

Domain reputation and its importance are critical for email marketing success. A strong domain reputation ensures your emails reach recipients’ inboxes, increases engagement, and builds trust with your audience.

Domain reputation is particularly important in email marketing for several key reasons:

Deliver Emails to the Inbox

A reputable domain helps your emails avoid spam folders. Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo! use your domain reputation to decide whether to deliver emails.

Increase Open Rates

Emails that reach the inbox get opened more often. Higher open rates improve engagement and boost conversions.

Improve Engagement Metrics

Positive actions like clicks, replies, and low bounce rates strengthen your domain reputation. Negative actions, such as spam complaints, weaken it.

Avoid Blacklists

Domains with poor reputations risk being blacklisted by email providers. Blacklisting prevents you from delivering future campaigns effectively.

Build Trust and Credibility

A strong domain reputation signals that your emails are legitimate. Subscribers trust your messages and are more likely to act on them.

Maintain Compliance

Following email regulations like CAN-SPAM and GDPR helps you preserve your domain reputation. Violating these rules can harm your credibility and cause legal issues.

Save Costs and Achieve Long-Term Success

Sending emails that consistently reach the inbox avoids wasted resources. Over time, a good reputation ensures ongoing subscriber engagement and loyalty.

In short, understanding domain reputation and its importance directly impacts deliverability, engagement, trust, compliance, and overall ROI.

Understanding why emails show automatic opens or clicks helps you analyze your email campaign performance accurately. Many email providers use security protocols that automatically open emails and click links before delivering them to recipients. These automated actions ensure the email content is safe but can create false opens or clicks in your reports.

Some subscribers, particularly those with strict security settings such as .edu or .gov domains, may trigger automatic opens or clicks when receiving emails. This is due to their security filters, which scan links and images for safety before delivering the email. This process can generate false opens or clicks, and there’s little senders can do to prevent it.

To identify auto-clicking subscribers, you can include a hidden link in the email. If it’s clicked, you’ll know the subscriber’s system is automatically scanning the content.

To reduce automatic clicks and opens, encourage subscribers with strict domains to use personal email addresses. Additionally, use HTTPS links, avoid overly promotional content, maintain a clean email list, and avoid typing full URLs in the email. Instead, embed links in text, buttons, or images.

By understanding why emails show automatic opens or clicks, you can better interpret your campaign reports, adjust your email strategy, and make informed decisions to improve engagement metrics.

Learn how to set up Google Postmaster for your sender domain to monitor email deliverability, domain reputation, and spam reports for your campaigns. Setting up Google Postmaster ensures you get accurate insights into how Gmail users interact with your emails and helps maintain a strong sender reputation. To begin, sign into https://postmaster.google.com. Then click on Get Started.

Click Get Started

Enter your domain URL and then click Next

Copy TXT record from Google Postmaster and paste it in your DNS Management

In your DNS Management, click Add

Select Type TXT, Name – yourdomain.com and Value – TXT Record from Google Postmaster. Then click Add record

Once the domain record is added, go to Google Postmaster Tools and click Verify

You will see the status as Verified in the Postmaster Tool

Now that the Google Postmaster Tools is configured, use it to measure your spam rate and overall health of your sender domain and monitor your email performance with confidence.

Gmail and Yahoo Mail have recently introduced a new set of requirements for senders by Google and Yahoo. These rules, effective from February 2024, aim to protect user inboxes and improve email deliverability.

First, you must set up DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records for your sender domain. This step replaces simple email address verification and ensures your domain proves its authenticity. As a result, your emails are less likely to land in spam. You can follow this guide to configure DKIM, SPF, and DMARC for detailed instructions.

The second one is the introduction of easy one-click unsubscribe button on the email header. MailBluster has also implemented an easy one-click unsubscribe header automatically to all outgoing emails to make it easier for recipients to unsubscribe, reducing the spam complaints, as shown below :

The third one is Mailbox providers will require that all senders keep spam complaint rates below 0.3% to avoid having their email treated as spam by the mailbox provider. It is recommended to enroll with Google Postmaster Tools to monitor their spam complaint rates for Gmail recipients.

Kindly be informed that disregarding these requirements could result in Gmail and Yahoo rejecting the delivery of emails to their intended recipients. By following this new set of requirements for senders by Google and Yahoo, you can achieve higher inbox placement rates, maintain compliance with email regulations like CAN-SPAM and GDPR, and reduce negative engagement metrics. Always keep your domain records up-to-date and monitor campaigns to ensure compliance.

You may wonder why you are getting [email protected] emails. This happens when a recipient of your email campaign clicks the spam button (or its equivalent, such as “junk” button) in their email application, their email service provider (such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc) typically sends a message back to Amazon Simple Email Services (Amazon SES).  This is done to let Amazon and you know that this recipient has marked your email as spam.

To notify you of this action, Amazon SES will send an email to the “from” address used in your email from their [email protected] address, providing you any of the technical information that came along with the spam complaint from the recipient’s email service provider.

When you receive such an email, you should verify that the complaining recipient is not included in your future email sends.  This will ensure that you have happy email recipients and fall under the good graces of Amazon SES.

Here is an example of complaint message:

If your emails land in spam, promotions, or bounce, you should check email sending reputation using MailTester immediately. This tool helps you identify whether your domain authentication and email practices work correctly.

Often, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and ESPs (Email Service Providers) reject or filter messages when DKIM, SPF, or DMARC records are misconfigured. Without proper authentication, even legitimate emails may be flagged. That’s why you should always check email sending reputation using MailTester before sending major campaigns.

To check your email sending reputation, follow this process:

First go to https://www.mail-tester.com/

Copy the email address link provided by https://www.mail-tester.com/ . Do not close the tab of the browser. Leave it open.

Then go to another tab and sign in to MailBluster. Go to Brand > Campaign and click on your desired campaign. Scroll down and click on Send test email.

And paste the email link of mail-tester in the Recipients email address field of the Test email pop up box. Then click Send test email.

Now Click on Then check your score and you will be forwarded to a page with detailed results similar to this:

You can copy the shared link (highlighted) below to share the score with anyone, example tech team or support team

You will get detailed information whether your DNS MX records configured correctly or not by clicking each of the section:

By following these steps and regularly testing, you can improve inbox placement and prevent your emails from being filtered. Always remember to check email sending reputation using MailTester before major campaigns—it helps protect your sender reputation and ensures better engagement.

If your emails are landing in spam, it usually means that your domain or message lacks proper authentication and reputation. The first step is to ensure that the DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records of your sender domain are set up and working properly. You can refer to this video tutorial for configuring this.

Verifying domain ownership helps to increase email deliverability. However, domain verification alone will not fully prevent emails from landing in spam. There are additional steps you must take.

The second most important step is to use an Action URL. You can set it from Settings > Custom URL tab. Custom URLs can be used to rename the links that MailBluster uses, such as the web version URL and unsubscribe URL. By default, MailBluster uses a shared URL, which may lack a good reputation. Setting up an Action URL will help resolve this issue.

Here is a tutorial for setting up an Action URL: How to set Action URL for your brand in MailBluster.

After configuring all the mentioned settings, send a test email to mail-tester.com and check your sending score.

Please note that your emails might still land in the spam folder, but there are opportunities to improve your deliverability. This blog might help you: The Ultimate Guide on How to Prevent Your Email Newsletters from Going to Spam.

Emails landing in the Promotions tab can be frustrating for marketers who want their messages seen in the Primary inbox. Gmail and Yahoo Mail automatically filter incoming emails to improve the user experience. Their algorithms scan subject lines, links, and formatting to decide whether a message looks promotional, personal, or suspicious. Because marketing emails often include images, product offers, and multiple links, Gmail usually sends them to the Promotions tab.

Whether your emails are delivered to your customers’ Promotions tab or their Inbox is typically determined by mail services such as Gmail. Given that you’re sending promotional emails, it’s only natural that they’ll be classified as Promotions by the Gmail algorithm.

Gmail has implemented a categorization based on the following criteria:

1. Email Content (whether the content you send appears to be marketing/promotional in nature rather than personal)
2. Personalization (the level of personalization your email offers to each of the customers)
3. User interaction (whether your customer personally marked your email to be categorized into the promotions tab)

If you create personalized content for each subscriber in your email campaign, it’s more likely your email will land in their primary inbox tab.

Emails landing in the Promotions tab are still delivered successfully, but they may receive fewer opens. By following best practices and focusing on subscriber engagement, you increase the chance of reaching the Primary inbox.

If you’ve ever asked yourself why do you get this error “suspicious link”, the answer is usually linked to email security checks. Using HTTPS links in your email campaign should resolve the “suspicious link” issue.

If the issue still persists, then you need to check for the following:

1. Using the HTTP link instead of HTTPS
2. No DKIM configured
3. No SPF configured
4. No DMARC configured
5. Verifying your domain (click base URL) at postmaster.google.com
6. Using public URL shorteners like http://bit.ly
7. The Amazon SES is using shared IP to send your emails which might have a low reputation

If you notice suspicious activity or receive unwanted messages, you should report spam or complaint email to MailBluster. This ensures that abusive senders are investigated and helps maintain a safe email environment for all users.

To submit a report, please contact our Support Center first for reporting any spam, complaint or abusive emails. You need to share the following details with the support team before submitting your spam or complaint email:

1. Sender’s Email Address

2. Recipient’s Email Address

3. Screenshot of the email you received

Our team will assess and investigate the report thoroughly and if we found that the customer is violating MailBluster Terms of use, we will take necessary actions against the sender.

If you are wondering why a lead’s double opt-in status is still waiting, it is usually because the subscriber has not yet confirmed their email address. When a lead subscribes to your mailing list with double opt-in enabled, they receive a confirmation email to verify their address. The lead remains in a waiting status until they click the confirmation button. This process ensures that only genuine subscribers join your active mailing list, helping to improve email deliverability and engagement rates

The primary reason of decreasing open rates in your email campaigns can stem from several factors. Here are some common reasons:

1. List fatigue: Over time, subscribers may become disengaged or less interested in your emails, resulting in lower open rates.
2. Content relevance: If your email content becomes less relevant or engaging to your audience, they may be less inclined to open your emails.
3. Deliverability issues: Technical issues, spam filtering, or changes in email client algorithms could affect your emails’ deliverability, leading to lower open rates.
4. List quality: Your email list may naturally decay over time as subscribers change email addresses, unsubscribe, or mark your emails as spam, impacting your open rates.
5. Subject line effectiveness: If your subject lines are not compelling or enticing, subscribers may be less likely to open your emails.
6. Competition: Increased competition or changes in the competitive landscape could affect open rates as subscribers receive more emails from other sources.
7. Lack of segmentation: If you’re not segmenting your email list effectively, you may be sending irrelevant content to certain segments, leading to lower open rates.
8. Technical issues: Technical issues such as deliverability problems, spam filtering, or changes in email client algorithms can affect open rates. Monitor your email deliverability metrics and address any issues promptly.

By identifying the reason of decreasing open rates and addressing these factors—through better content, proper segmentation, and technical improvements—you can boost engagement and maintain healthy email campaign performance.

It’s quite difficult to accurately find the actual reason behind the gradual decrease of open rate in your campaign. For example, it might be due to the words you used while composing the email content, or some misconfiguration of your DNS server, or maybe these segments are less responsive compared to the previous segments, or the ISP is categorizing you in such a way that is causing less open rate etc. To fix the gradual drop of open rates, you need to assume the reasons, work on them, and monitor the progress. We can guide and share resources on this.

For example,
You need to set the necessary DNS records to increase your email deliverability.

Also, you can set up the Action URL on MailBluster. You can set it up from the Settings > Custom URL page.

You should follow these best practices:
1. The Ultimate Guide on How to Prevent Your Email Newsletters from Going to SPAM
2. Best Email Opening Lines to Hook Your Audience
3. Email Images: Complete Guide to Using Images in Email
4. Email Footer: Do Not Forget about the Last Impression

If you want to resolve IP blocks that hurt email delivery and open rate, it’s important to understand why these issues occur. Based on our work with AWS customers, seeing an IP address on a spam list is surprisingly common. There are several reasons behind this problem, and knowing them will help you fix it.

Why IP Blocks Happen

1. Shared IP Pool
By default, AWS sends emails through a shared IP pool. Other AWS users may have already used these IP addresses, and if they engaged in poor sending practices, the IP may appear on spam lists. As a result, your campaigns can suffer even though you didn’t cause the problem.

2. New IP Address
When you switch from another service to AWS, you start sending emails from a new IP. Email Service Providers (ESPs) don’t immediately trust this IP, even if your sender domain is valid. Therefore, it’s better to start with a small volume of emails and gradually increase sending. This process, known as “warming up” an IP, builds reputation and improves deliverability.

How to Resolve IP Blocks and Improve Deliverability

To resolve IP blocks that hurt email delivery and open rate, follow these actionable steps:

1. You might have an issue in SPF record, so you need to look into it.

2. Improve your email.  Too many images make your email bulky. Bulky emails are tough to deliver and impact deliverability. We have seen customers getting better output by sending simple text emails. It looks like a personal email.

3. Avoid adding any URLs other than your sending domain to your email content. For example, don’t use URL from sendgrid.com or similar.

4. Set Action URL from the Settings > Custom URL section. Add your own domain/subdomain. It will improve deliverability. It’s part of point 3.

5. Personalize your email campaign. For example, it’s better to write Hi {{first_name}}, instead of Hi Guys,. To ESPs, it means you know who you are sending emails to and each email is different.

6. Create email campaigns using drag and drop editor. It creates better HTML code that supports all types of devices and ESPs.

IP blocks can seriously harm your campaigns. However, when you understand why they happen and apply the right fixes, you can quickly improve deliverability. By focusing on authentication, personalization, and sending practices, you’ll be able to resolve IP blocks that hurt email delivery and open rate while keeping subscribers engaged. For more detailed information, you can read this blog: https://mailbluster.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-on-how-to-prevent-your-email-newsletters-from-going-to-spam. If you can follow this correctly, it would definitely help you a lot.

It is not possible to disable the process of stopping emails from being sent to leads who receive an error message due to their inboxes being full, nor is it advisable. If the recipient clears their inbox, it will free up disk space, allowing future emails to be delivered properly. AWS does not penalize or damage the sender’s reputation for such emails. Therefore, retrying is appropriate.

However, if you find these notifications unnecessary or disruptive, you can disable them by following the steps below.

To disable these notifications, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon SES console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/ses.
2. In the navigation pane, under Configuration, select Verified identities (Make sure you have chosen the correct AWS region).
3. From the list of verified email addresses or domains, select the email address or domain for which you want to disable notifications.
4. Click the Notifications tab.
5. Choose Edit in the Email feedback forwarding section.
6. Uncheck the Email feedback forwarding – Enabled option.
7. Click Save changes.
8. Repeat these steps for all verified domains/email addresses for which you want to disable notifications.

By following this process, you can stop receiving these notifications while ensuring proper email deliverability.

To remove your IP address if it’s on a blacklist, you can follow these steps to get delisted from the Spamhaus. Being on a blacklist can negatively impact your email deliverability, so it’s important to address it quickly. You can try these steps using Spamhaus:

The Spamhaus Block List (SBL) allows users to request removal of IPs listed for sending spam. Here are the steps to request delisting:

1. Check if your IP is listed: Go to Spamhaus Blocklist Lookup and enter your IP address.
2. Understand the listing reason: The results will show why your IP is listed.
3. Follow removal instructions: Click the provided “Remove” or “Request Delisting” link for your IP. You may need to provide information about your mail server and what actions you’ve taken to prevent spam.
4. Wait for confirmation: Spamhaus typically reviews requests quickly and sends confirmation if your IP is delisted.

By following these steps ensures that you successfully remove your IP address from blacklist and helps maintain your email reputation.

If you’re sending emails and your recipients see the alert “this message might be suspicious or spam,” it can damage your credibility and lower your email open rates. This issue happens even if you’ve already registered your domain name and set up a professional email. The good news is that you can fix “this message might be suspicious or spam” warning by following a few proven steps.

1. You need to set up a DMARC record.

2. Send emails from an address other than your [email protected]. For example, use [email protected] or [email protected] for marketing emails, and [email protected] for notifications.

3. Consider using a subdomain if desired. For instance, use [email protected] for marketing emails. Using a subdomain helps manage and protect your primary domain’s reputation—if a subdomain is flagged for spam, it won’t affect your main domain.

4. Improve your email content significantly; this is crucial.

Visit Really Good Emails for guidance on email purposes, crafting compelling subject lines, and more. These blog posts can also be helpful:

• Email Marketing Best Practices
• AWS SES Best Sending Practices to Maintain Reputation