Summary
Resolving Yahoo soft bounces and TSS04 errors when warming up email sending too quickly involves several key steps. Primarily, slowing down the warm-up process is crucial, reducing sending to previously successful levels and gradually increasing volume. Focusing on engaged recipients and maintaining a clean email list are also important. Additionally, understanding and addressing the underlying causes of bounces, such as permission issues or spam triggers, and complying with Yahoo's sending guidelines, including DMARC requirements, are essential. Monitoring deliverability metrics and understanding bounce codes can provide insights. Opening a postmaster ticket with Yahoo might be necessary in some cases.
Key findings
- Slow Down: Reduce sending volume if encountering TSS04 errors.
- Focus on Engagement: Send to engaged subscribers who have given explicit permission.
- List Hygiene: Regularly remove inactive and bounced subscribers.
- Authentication: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
- Content Quality: Avoid spam trigger words and personalize content.
- Monitor Metrics: Track bounce rates, complaint rates, and engagement levels.
- Understand Error Codes: Read Yahoo's error codes to get insight on your deliverability.
Key considerations
- Warm-up Speed: Increase sending volume slowly to establish a positive reputation.
- Permission: Ensure recipients have explicitly opted in to receive emails.
- Content Relevance: Send relevant and valuable content to subscribers.
- DMARC Compliance: Align sending practices with Yahoo and AOL's DMARC requirements.
- Postmaster Tools: Utilize Yahoo's postmaster tools for insights into email traffic.
- Underlying Issues: Fix underlying problems if soft bounces persist.
What email marketers say
11 marketer opinions
To resolve Yahoo soft bounces and TSS04 errors caused by rapid email warm-up, a multi-faceted approach is necessary. Experts recommend a slow and steady warm-up process, beginning with a small volume of emails sent to highly engaged users and gradually increasing the volume over time. Maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive or bounced subscribers is also important. Additionally, it's crucial to focus on engagement metrics, segment email lists for targeted content, properly authenticate emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and monitor deliverability metrics regularly. Reading Yahoo error codes can provide information about the issues, submitting feedback forms to Yahoo can help resolve the issue, and making sure that email content is high-quality and personalized will also help.
Key opinions
- Gradual Warm-up: A slow and steady email warm-up approach is vital, starting with a small volume and increasing it gradually.
- Engagement Matters: Focus on sending to engaged recipients who actively open and click emails to improve deliverability.
- List Hygiene: Maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive and bounced subscribers enhances sender reputation.
- Authentication: Properly authenticating emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC builds trust and improves deliverability.
- Segmentation and Targeting: Segmenting email lists and targeting specific groups with relevant content reduces bounces and complaints.
- Error Code Analysis: Understanding and addressing the root cause of errors by reading Yahoo's error codes.
Key considerations
- Initial Volume: Carefully determine the initial sending volume based on list size and engagement levels.
- Content Quality: Ensure email content is high-quality, personalized, and avoids spam trigger words to maintain a positive sender reputation.
- Monitoring Metrics: Regularly monitor deliverability metrics such as bounce rates and complaint rates to identify and address potential issues.
- Feedback Loops: Engage with feedback loops and postmaster tools to understand how Yahoo perceives your email traffic.
- Yahoo's Guidelines: Stay updated with Yahoo's sending guidelines and policies to ensure compliance and avoid deliverability issues.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares their experience of encountering TSS04/IPTS04 errors across multiple ESPs simultaneously despite consistent sending patterns. They explain that submitting feedback forms to Yahoo resolved the issues, and advise to reply to generic responses requesting further investigation with data and explanations.
25 Nov 2021 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from EmailDrip shares that a slow and steady approach to warming up your IP address is essential, starting with a small number of emails to highly engaged users and gradually increasing the volume. This helps establish a positive reputation with ISPs like Yahoo.
24 Jun 2022 - EmailDrip
What the experts say
6 expert opinions
Resolving Yahoo soft bounces and TSS04 errors, especially when warming up too fast, requires a comprehensive approach. Experts advise slowing down the warm-up process to previously successful sending levels and focusing on engaged recipients. Understanding Yahoo's spam escalation process, from spam folders to rate limiting, is crucial. Avoid aggressively removing soft bounces as they signal underlying issues. Investigating potentially problematic links, opening a postmaster ticket with Yahoo, and building a positive sender reputation are important steps. Furthermore, compliance with Yahoo and AOL's enhanced DMARC enforcement is necessary to prevent authentication failures and improve deliverability.
Key opinions
- Slow Down Warm-up: Reduce sending volume to levels that previously delivered successfully.
- Focus on Engagement: Target engaged recipients with clear permission to receive mail.
- Understand Yahoo's Escalation: Be aware of Yahoo's spam handling process, from spam folders to rate limiting and blocking.
- Avoid Aggressive Removal: Do not aggressively remove soft bounces, as they can indicate underlying problems.
- Sender Reputation Matters: Build a positive sender reputation over time through engaging subscribers.
- DMARC Compliance: Comply with Yahoo and AOL's enhanced DMARC enforcement to prevent authentication failures.
Key considerations
- Investigate Links: Check for links with bad reputations that may be causing problems.
- Open Postmaster Ticket: Open a postmaster ticket with Yahoo for potential backend reset.
- Review Engagement: Look back at engagement metrics, especially open rates (considering Yahoo's pixel pre-fetching), over the past six months.
- Fix Underlying Issues: Address the reasons why recipients are complaining about your messages.
- Monitor Bounce Rates: Monitor and respond to soft bounces, using them as a signal to improve email practices.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks shares that Yahoo escalates spam handling through stages: spam folder for unengaged and new recipients, then existing recipients, then all mail, followed by rate limiting, stronger rate limiting, and finally blocking. They suggest looking back 6 months to review engagement and open rates, especially considering Yahoo's pixel pre-fetching.
2 Nov 2023 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks advises against aggressively removing soft bouncing addresses due to Yahoo using soft bounces as a signal. They recommend fixing the underlying issues causing recipient complaints before removing them. They also suggest investigating links in the message that might have a bad reputation.
5 Nov 2021 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Resolving Yahoo soft bounces and TSS04 errors, particularly during email warm-up, involves understanding and addressing the underlying causes. Official documentation emphasizes reviewing sending practices, focusing on permission, list hygiene, and content relevance. While TSS04 is specific to Yahoo, a broader understanding of bounce codes and general email sending best practices, such as using authentication methods (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), maintaining a clean list, avoiding spam triggers, and monitoring sending reputation and bounce rates, are universally applicable to preventing deliverability issues.
Key findings
- TSS04 Cause: TSS04 indicates temporary message deferral due to unexpected volume or user complaints.
- Review Sending Practices: Address issues around recipient permission, list hygiene, and content relevance.
- Understand Bounce Codes: Analyzing bounce codes (including TSS04 and others) provides insights into delivery problems.
- Apply General Best Practices: Universal best practices for email sending improve overall deliverability.
- Authentication is Key: Use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to verify sender identity and maintain sender reputation.
- List Management: Regularly clean email lists, removing bounced and inactive addresses.
- Avoid Spam Triggers: Be aware of words and phrases that can trigger spam filters.
- Monitor Reputation: Keep an eye on your sending reputation to spot emerging issues early.
Key considerations
- Focus on Recipient Consent: Ensure that recipients have explicitly given their permission to receive emails.
- Maintain Content Relevance: Send content that is relevant and valuable to the intended audience.
- Monitor Bounce Rates: Track and analyze bounce rates to identify potential problems and improve email deliverability.
- Monitor Spam Complaints: Keep on eye on spam complaints - and address any complaints that come in.
- Use postmaster tools: Tools from the Email Providers like Yahoo and Google will give you insights into email traffic.
Technical article
Documentation from SparkPost explains that understanding bounce codes is crucial for troubleshooting delivery issues. While TSS04 is specific to Yahoo, other soft bounce codes can provide insights into potential problems with your sending reputation and practices.
26 Nov 2023 - SparkPost
Technical article
Documentation from Microsoft shares while focusing on Microsoft services, the document emphasizes the importance of following best practices for bulk email sending to maintain a good reputation. This includes proper list management, avoiding spam triggers in content, and monitoring bounce rates to quickly address issues affecting deliverability.
3 Jun 2021 - Microsoft
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