Can push messaging bounces impact email delivery and inbox placement?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 26 Apr 2025
Updated 16 Aug 2025
6 min read
It might seem counterintuitive, but bounces from other messaging channels, like push notifications, can indeed have a measurable impact on your email delivery and inbox placement. When different communication streams share the same underlying infrastructure, such as an IP address or domain, issues in one area can quickly cascade and affect others. This interconnectedness is a critical aspect of managing overall sender reputation and ensuring your messages consistently reach their intended recipients.
The core of the issue lies in how mailbox providers and anti-spam systems evaluate your sending entity. They look at a holistic view of your sending behavior across various channels, especially if those channels are linked by common identifiers. A sudden surge in bounces from a push messaging campaign, particularly those indicating permanent failures, can signal poor list hygiene or suspicious activity, leading to a downgrade in your overall sender reputation.
Shared infrastructure and cross-channel impact
When you have different communication channels, such as email and push notifications, originating from the same IP address or using closely associated domains, their reputations become intertwined. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mailbox providers monitor sending behavior across all traffic linked to a specific IP or domain. If a push messaging campaign experiences a high bounce rate, especially hard bounces, it can trigger red flags for these systems.
This can lead to a broad-based negative impact on your shared sending reputation, affecting not just your push messages, but also your email deliverability. A compromised IP or domain reputation means that even legitimate emails might be subjected to stricter filtering, potentially landing in spam folders or being outright blocked. Understanding this interconnectedness is key to maintaining healthy deliverability across all your communication channels.
A common bounce code like 554 5.7.0 Blocked, often seen with providers like Apple, indicates a permanent blocking issue. While this might originate from push messaging, if the same IP or domain is used for email, that block could extend to email traffic, preventing your messages from reaching the inbox.
The impact of shared infrastructure
When your email and push campaigns share an IP address or domain, the performance of one directly influences the other. Mailbox providers assess your sender reputation based on all activity from a given sending identity. A sudden spike in bounces from any channel can lower this collective reputation, affecting email inbox placement.
Understanding the types of bounces
Bounces are a clear signal to mailbox providers about the health and quality of your sending practices. There are generally two types of bounces: hard bounces and soft bounces. Hard bounces, like those from invalid email addresses, are permanent failures and are far more detrimental to your sender reputation.
Soft bounces, on the other hand, are temporary issues, such as a full inbox or a server timeout, and are generally less damaging, though repeated soft bounces to the same address can eventually be treated as hard bounces. However, even soft bounces can collectively impact your deliverability if they occur in large volumes.Both types of bounces signal to an ISP that your list might be outdated or poorly managed. A high bounce rate, regardless of its origin (email or another channel on the same infrastructure), indicates that you are sending to unengaged or nonexistent recipients.
This poor list hygiene makes you look like a less responsible sender, which can result in your emails being filtered to spam or junk folders, or even blocked entirely. This directly impacts your inbox placement rates.
Highly damaging to sender reputation. Leads to future emails being blocked or spam-foldered. Requires immediate removal from lists.
Soft bounce
Temporary delivery issue, e.g., full inbox, server too busy, message too large.
Less severe than hard bounces, but repeated soft bounces can still harm reputation. Often retried by ESPs.
In essence, while push message bounces might not directly affect email delivery at a technical protocol level, their impact on your overall sender reputation, particularly if shared IPs or domains are involved, can be significant. It's crucial to address high bounce rates in any channel that utilizes your primary sending infrastructure.
Maintaining a healthy sender reputation
The most effective way to protect your email deliverability is through vigilant list hygiene. Regularly cleaning your email lists of invalid or unengaged addresses is paramount. This includes promptly removing hard-bouncing addresses and monitoring for patterns of repeated soft bounces that may indicate an inactive or problematic recipient.
Implementing a double opt-in process for new subscribers can significantly reduce the number of invalid addresses entering your list, thereby lowering your initial bounce rates. For existing lists, consider re-engagement campaigns to identify and segment inactive users, removing those who consistently show no engagement.
Double opt-in: Use this method to verify email addresses upon subscription, ensuring genuine interest.
Engagement monitoring: Segment and remove unengaged subscribers to prevent negative reputation signals.
Poor list hygiene
Ignoring bounces: Continuing to send to bouncing addresses, increasing the risk of blocklisting.
Purchased lists: Sending to lists acquired without consent often results in high bounces and spam traps.
Infrequent cleaning: Allowing old, inactive, or invalid addresses to remain on your list, dragging down reputation.
A proactive approach to list management, combined with close monitoring of bounce rates across all your digital communication channels, will help ensure your sender reputation remains strong, preventing issues like blocklisting and improving your inbox placement.
Actionable steps to improve deliverability
To effectively mitigate the impact of bounces, whether from email or other channels sharing your sending infrastructure, start by thoroughly analyzing your bounce logs. Your Email Service Provider (ESP) should provide detailed bounce codes and error messages, which are crucial for diagnosing the root cause of delivery failures. For example, a 554 5.7.0 Blocked response clearly indicates a block, prompting further investigation.
Once you have the bounce data, prioritize addressing hard bounces by removing those addresses from your mailing lists immediately. For soft bounces, evaluate patterns. If a specific type of soft bounce, like a mailbox full bounce, occurs repeatedly for certain recipients, consider removing them or segmenting them into a re-engagement list.
Problem
A sudden spike in push messaging bounces indicates recipient issues or content problems. If this traffic shares IP space with email, it can negatively impact your email sender reputation.
Solution
Isolate push messaging traffic to dedicated IP addresses or subdomains if possible, preventing its reputation from affecting your primary email sending. Monitor Google Postmaster Tools and other postmaster feedback loops for early warning signs.
Engaging with postmaster teams at major mailbox providers, particularly for persistent blocking issues like those at Apple Mail, can also provide valuable insights and pathways to resolution. They often have specific guidelines for reputation recovery and can offer assistance if you demonstrate proactive efforts in managing your sending hygiene. Remember, consistent monitoring and prompt action are key to mitigating the impact of bounces on your overall deliverability.
Key takeaways
In conclusion, while push messaging bounces may not be the first factor you consider when troubleshooting email deliverability, their impact can be indirect yet significant, especially when sharing infrastructure. The underlying principle is that all sending behavior from a given IP or domain contributes to its overall reputation.
Proactive list management, detailed bounce analysis across all channels, and diligent engagement with postmaster teams are essential for maintaining a strong sender reputation and ensuring your emails consistently reach the inbox.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Actively monitor all communication channels that share your email sending infrastructure.
Segment and remove unengaged recipients from your lists, regardless of their bounce status.
Implement double opt-in for all new subscribers across all channels to ensure quality.
Regularly check postmaster tools and feedback loops for reputation insights.
Isolate traffic from different channels onto separate IPs or subdomains when possible.
Common pitfalls
Ignoring high bounce rates from non-email channels like push, if they share IP space.
Not removing hard bounces promptly, which severely damages sender reputation.
Sending to outdated or unverified lists, leading to increased bounces and spam complaints.
Failing to track bounce codes, which are essential for diagnosing delivery issues.
Assuming that issues in one channel won't impact other channels using the same infrastructure.
Expert tips
Diversify your sending infrastructure for different message types to compartmentalize reputation risks.
Use engagement metrics from all channels to inform your list hygiene strategies for email.
Leverage DMARC reports to identify authentication failures and source of suspicious traffic.
Continuously educate your marketing and product teams on cross-channel deliverability impacts.
Test new campaign launches across all channels thoroughly to identify potential ripple effects.
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks says they saw a jump in email bounce rates for Apple domains after their push team launched a new event-triggered campaign with very high bounce rates. This was the only change identified around the time of the email issues.
2021-05-07 - Email Geeks
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks says it is important to check bounce codes and error messages from your ESP, as they provide insight into why emails are bouncing and what can be done.
Apple Mail, can also provide valuable insights and pathways to resolution. They often have specific guidelines for reputation recovery and can offer assistance if you demonstrate proactive efforts in managing your sending hygiene. Remember, consistent monitoring and prompt action are key to mitigating the impact of bounces on your overall deliverability.
