Capture Soft Bounce Reason

[JWeston7]

When sending emails to one specific contact they sometimes come back with a soft bounce.  Besides the email showing that "There was an issue sending your email," does Hubspot capture the soft bounce reason anywhere so we can use it to report on for follow-up with our contact?

[CShirley]

A "soft bounce" in email marketing refers to a temporary issue that prevents an email from being delivered to the recipient's inbox. Here are some common reasons for soft bounces:

1. Mailbox Full: The recipient's mailbox has reached its storage limit, preventing new messages from being delivered.

2. Temporary Server Issues: The email server is experiencing temporary problems or downtime, making it unable to accept incoming messages.

3. Message Size Too Large: The email exceeds the size limit set by the recipient’s server, which can happen with emails containing large attachments or images.

4. Spam Filters: The email might be flagged as spam or junk due to specific content, causing temporary delivery issues.

5. Invalid Recipient: The email address may not be recognized by the server, often because of a recent change or update.

Soft bounces are typically resolved automatically once the issue is corrected, and the email can be delivered later. However, if an address consistently soft bounces over time, it may need further review or removal from the mailing list.

[Jnix284]

Hi @JWeston7 as @CateDuarte mentioned, the only place to see the exact soft bounce reason/error is in the recipients tab for the email.

To pull these soft bounce contacts into a report or filter them, you can use a combination of Marketing emails bounced > 0 (indicates at least 1 email has bounced) and Email hard bounce reason is unknown (this will remove hard bounces and include only soft bounces)

From my experience, the best way to manage soft bounces is to review them individually from each sent email, this is the best way to determine if it's something you can resolve (like having the sales rep guide them through allowlisting your domain) or if you need to remove them from your mailing lists.

[Spaceman360]

Hi @Jnix284 - When looking at the Hardbounce/Softbounce selection - which of the options indicates a softbounce? 

I'm confused, which is which - to follow the steps suggested. 

[Jnix284 · Accepted solution]

@Spaceman360 all of the Hard bounce reasons indicate a Hard bounce, to find Soft bounce you need a combination of filters, Marketing emails bounced is known or greater than 0 AND Hard bounce reason is unknown.

This tells you that at least one email has bounced, and it wasn't a hard bounce reason.

[JWeston7]

Because these emails were sent one to one from within the contact’s record it appears that the number of marketing emails bounced is not updated by Hubspot. 

I do understand and have been using the hard bounce reason. 

[Jnix284]

Thanks for clarifying @JWeston7, to be honest, managing soft bounces or delivery failure for 1:1 sales email has been a weak point - this KB article goes through bounces in more detail, but it's still listed under marketing, not sales.

I did some digging and couldn't find answers in the community or the KB that would provide a way to better manage sales soft bounced contacts - I also tested extensively with different filters to see if I could surface them via another method and didn't have any luck.

@danmoyle do you have any insight for managing sales 1:1 soft bounces?

[danmoyle]

Thanks for the mention @Jnix284. In agreement here, it's not easy to understand why an email might soft bounce when it's a 1:1 email, @JWeston7. In my experience, relying on an IT wizard to help me determine why it might be an issue is the best bet. This could be HubSpot Support, or an internal person. 

I've also tried to email the person from an email that's not my connected HubSpot tool, asking that they allowlist my domains. 

[JWeston7]

Thank you @danmoyle  - I agree that eventually emailing from an unconnected email account (or calling) to have the block on the soft bounces removed is the eventual solution, but I was hoping to capture the reason and report on that first.  Often it has nothing to do with the user but instead the configuration of the receipients mail server, meaning who you contact would be different.  What we are trying to do is classify these so we can focus someone on addressing these by reason without having to sift through each and every email to determine the reason.  Alas, it sounds like this is something Hubspot does not track in any useful way on on-to-one emails.  So back to the drawing board.

[JWeston7]

Thanks for looking into it Jennifer - I'll cross my fingers that @danmoyle knows of a way this might have been captured.

[CateDuarte]

Hi @JWeston7 I think you can only see the detail in the recipients tab, under bounced. If you select "Soft Bounce" on the filter you can also export the list (under list actions - top right) and you'll have the soft bounce details.

Hope this helps

Catarina

[JWeston7]

Thanks Catarina but this is not from marketing email. It is an email sent
just to a specific contact from within their contact record. So, unless
I'm missing something, the recipients section you refer to does not exist.

[CateDuarte]

Ok.
So then this might help
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.

[JWeston7]

I think there is something missing you your reply