Summary
Salesforce Marketing Cloud offers automated bounce processing, classifying emails as hard or soft bounces and updating subscriber statuses accordingly. While SFMC has a default multi-bounce suppression policy, many experts advocate for more aggressive, immediate hard bounce suppression to protect sender reputation. Effective bounce management extends beyond automation, requiring proactive list hygiene, deep data analysis using SFMC's tools, and a nuanced approach to differentiate bounce types. Leveraging SFMC's data views and APIs allows marketers to gain critical insights into bounce trends, identify problematic domains, and refine their list segmentation, ultimately contributing to better deliverability and a healthier sender reputation.
Key findings
- Automated Bounce Processing: Salesforce Marketing Cloud automatically processes email bounces, classifying them as hard or soft, and updates subscriber statuses accordingly. Hard bounces typically lead to an 'Undeliverable' status, while multiple soft bounces can also result in suppression.
- Default Bounce Policy Criticized: SFMC's standard bounce policy often involves a threshold, such as 'at least 3 bounces where at least 2 weeks pass between bounces 1 and 3.' This default logic has been criticized by experts for being too slow, potentially allowing numerous sends to invalid addresses before suppression.
- Need for Nuanced Approach: Email deliverability experts emphasize that bounce management requires a 'scalpel' approach rather than a 'hammer,' highlighting the need for more nuanced strategies beyond SFMC's default settings and the importance of understanding specific bounce types and reasons.
- Data Views for Deep Analysis: SFMC provides data views like `_Bounce` and `_Sent`, as well as REST APIs, allowing users to query detailed information about individual bounces and send logs. This data is crucial for advanced analysis, custom reporting, and integrating with external systems for holistic insights.
- High Bounces Signal Poor Quality: Even with automated handling, high bounce rates indicate underlying issues with list quality or sending practices. Proactive management and ongoing list cleaning are essential to ensure messages reach their intended recipients and maintain a positive sender score.
Key considerations
- Aggressive Hard Bounce Suppression: Prioritize immediate suppression of hard bounces, often referred to as 'one and done,' rather than relying solely on Salesforce Marketing Cloud's default multi-bounce suppression policy. Experts strongly recommend submitting a ticket to SFMC to implement this more aggressive approach for hard bounces.
- Proactive List Hygiene: Implement continuous and proactive list hygiene practices, including double opt-in, regular removal of inactive or unengaged subscribers, and setting up automations to clean soft bounced addresses after a certain threshold. This minimizes overall bounce rates and protects sender reputation.
- Leverage SFMC Data Tools: Utilize SFMC's `_Bounce` data view, REST API, and Automation Studio for advanced bounce management. This enables detailed analysis of bounce types, reasons, and trends; identifying problematic domains; and informing segmentation and custom suppression logic beyond SFMC's automated handling.
- Differentiate Bounce Types: Clearly distinguish between hard and soft bounces. While hard bounces necessitate permanent suppression, soft bounces may warrant a re-engagement strategy if temporary issues caused the bounce, though repeated soft bounces should also lead to suppression.
- Impact on Sender Reputation: Understand that even with SFMC's automated bounce processing, consistently high bounce rates signal poor list quality to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), negatively impacting overall sender reputation and deliverability, especially during IP warming.
What email marketers say
16 marketer opinions
Building on its automated bounce handling, Salesforce Marketing Cloud requires a strategic, hands-on approach to truly optimize deliverability. While the platform categorizes and processes bounces, a common critique is its default multi-bounce policy, which experts often find too lenient. Successful bounce management in SFMC isn't just about the system suppressing addresses; it demands ongoing proactive list hygiene, diligent monitoring of bounce data through dedicated data views, and the implementation of custom logic to ensure immediate suppression of hard bounces. This meticulous attention helps maintain a strong sender reputation and ensures messaging reaches engaged subscribers, preventing unnecessary outreach to invalid addresses.
Key opinions
- SFMC's Default Logic: Salesforce's standard bounce policy involves a multi-bounce threshold, often 'at least 3 bounces where at least 2 weeks pass between bounces 1 and 3,' which can allow up to 15 messages for daily mailers before suppression.
- Criticism of Default Reasoning: Experts question Salesforce's default bounce logic, particularly the claim that only large companies should set up immediate hard bounce removal, arguing this approach is generally suboptimal.
- Nuanced Terminology: The generic term 'bounces' is insufficient; effective discussions and management require clear differentiation between 'hard bounces' and 'soft bounces' to guide appropriate actions.
- Proactive Monitoring: Beyond SFMC's automatic handling, proactively monitoring bounce rates using data views like _Bounce and _Sent is critical for identifying trends and high bounce domains, informing list cleaning efforts.
- Beyond Automation: Effective bounce management in SFMC extends beyond automated processing to include proactive list hygiene, such as double opt-in and regular removal of unengaged subscribers, to prevent high bounce rates from negatively impacting sender score.
Key considerations
- Customizing Hard Bounce Logic: Strongly consider configuring SFMC to implement a 'one and done' hard bounce logic. This often requires submitting a support ticket to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, ensuring hard bounced addresses are immediately marked as inactive rather than unsubscribed.
- Utilize Data for Analysis: Regularly extract and analyze SFMC bounce data from _Bounce and _Sent data views using SQL queries or external tools. This enables deeper custom analysis, trend identification, and cross-referencing with CRM data for a holistic view of deliverability issues.
- Re-engagement for Soft Bounces: Develop a strategic approach for soft bounces. While hard bounces demand permanent suppression, soft bounces, often due to temporary issues, might warrant a re-engagement path before permanent suppression if they recur.
- Automation for Bounce Management: Leverage SFMC's automation capabilities, like Automation Studio, to create journeys or programs that automatically respond to bounce events, such as moving hard-bounced subscribers to a 'Do Not Send' list and tracking soft bounces over time.
- Sender Reputation Protection: Recognize that high bounce rates, even if automatically managed, send negative signals to ISPs and can significantly impact sender reputation, especially during IP warming. Rigorous list cleaning and careful segmentation are paramount.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that Salesforce's bounce logic typically doesn't make sense and that bounce management should be more nuanced, using a "scalpel" approach instead of a "hammer" for effective problem-solving.
27 Jan 2023 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that hard bounces must be removed immediately and questions Salesforce's reasoning behind its default bounce logic, especially the claim that "only large companies" have it set up to remove on the first hard bounce.
11 Jun 2025 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
2 expert opinions
Beyond Salesforce Marketing Cloud's internal bounce processing, effective management is fundamentally about maintaining list health and sender reputation. Experts stress the critical need to differentiate between hard and soft bounces, recognizing that while hard bounces demand immediate, permanent removal, even repeated soft bounces can indicate a need for eventual suppression. Understanding various bounce codes and implementing robust list hygiene are paramount. Proactive and timely removal of all persistently bounced addresses is essential to prevent high bounce rates from signaling underlying list quality issues, thereby ensuring better overall email deliverability.
Key opinions
- Bounce Management Importance: Effective bounce management is crucial for ensuring email deliverability, as high bounce rates indicate issues with list quality or sending practices.
- Differentiating Bounce Types: It's essential to distinguish between hard bounces, which signify permanent delivery failure and require immediate removal, and soft bounces, which are temporary.
- Soft Bounce Persistence: While temporary, repeated soft bounces can eventually behave like hard bounces, underscoring the need for their timely removal from mailing lists.
- Impact on Sender Reputation: Prompt removal of all bounced addresses, including persistent soft bounces, is vital for maintaining a positive sender reputation and improving overall email deliverability.
- Understanding Bounce Codes: Comprehending various bounce codes is an important aspect of effective bounce management, providing insights into delivery failures.
Key considerations
- Immediate Hard Bounce Removal: Ensure that hard bounce addresses are immediately and permanently removed from subscriber lists, as they indicate irreversible delivery failure.
- Strategic Soft Bounce Handling: Implement a strategy for soft bounces that accounts for their temporary nature but also leads to removal if they recur, as persistent soft bounces damage sender reputation.
- Proactive List Hygiene: Emphasize robust and continuous list hygiene practices, including understanding various bounce codes, to prevent high bounce rates and their negative impact on deliverability.
- Continuous Monitoring and Action: Regularly monitor bounce rates and types, taking timely action to remove problematic addresses to maintain a healthy sender reputation and ensure messages reach their intended recipients.
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that effective bounce management is crucial for email deliverability. This involves differentiating between hard and soft bounces, understanding various bounce codes, and implementing strong list hygiene practices. A high bounce rate often signals underlying issues with list quality or sending practices, making proactive management essential to ensure messages reach their intended recipients.
22 Feb 2023 - Spam Resource
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains the critical distinction between soft and hard email bounces, emphasizing that while hard bounces signify permanent delivery failure and require immediate list removal, repeated soft bounces can eventually function like hard bounces. She highlights the importance of timely removal of all bounced addresses, including those initially classified as soft, to maintain a positive sender reputation and enhance overall email deliverability.
26 Jul 2024 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
4 technical articles
Salesforce Marketing Cloud handles email bounces with automated processing, classifying them as hard or soft and updating subscriber statuses accordingly. This includes immediate marking of hard bounces as 'Undeliverable' and the eventual suppression of addresses after multiple soft bounces, which helps maintain sender reputation by preventing future sends to invalid addresses. Beyond this automated functionality, SFMC provides robust tools like the _Bounce data view and a REST API, empowering marketers to access detailed bounce information for advanced analysis, custom reporting, and integration with external systems, thereby enabling more sophisticated bounce management strategies.
Key findings
- Automated Processing & Status Updates: Salesforce Marketing Cloud automatically processes email bounces, categorizing them as hard or soft, and updates subscriber statuses to 'Undeliverable' for hard bounces or after a set number of soft bounces.
- Data View for Detail: The _Bounce data view in SFMC provides comprehensive information about individual bounces, including type, reason, and associated subscriber, which is vital for in-depth analysis.
- API for Advanced Integration: SFMC's REST API allows programmatic access to bounce data, facilitating integration with external platforms for real-time analytics, custom reporting, and automated suppression logic.
- Reputation Protection via Suppression: By automatically suppressing hard-bounced addresses immediately and soft-bounced addresses after three consecutive occurrences, SFMC helps safeguard sender reputation.
Key considerations
- Leverage Data Views for Insights: Utilize the _Bounce data view to query detailed bounce information, enabling trend analysis, identification of problematic domains, and more effective list segmentation beyond automated processing.
- Integrate via REST API: Employ SFMC's REST API to programmatically retrieve bounce data, allowing for custom integrations with CRMs or other systems to automate bounce processing and update subscriber profiles.
- Understand SFMC's Suppression Logic: Be aware of SFMC's default suppression rules, such as immediate suppression for hard bounces and suppression after three consecutive soft bounces, to understand how the platform protects your sender reputation.
- Augment Automation with Analytics: While SFMC automates bounce handling, proactive analysis of bounce data using its tools allows for a deeper understanding of deliverability issues, informing targeted list hygiene and strategic adjustments.
Technical article
Documentation from Salesforce Help explains that Salesforce Marketing Cloud automatically processes email bounces, classifying them as hard or soft, and updates subscriber status accordingly. Hard bounces lead to an 'Undeliverable' status, preventing future sends, while multiple soft bounces can also result in an 'Undeliverable' status to help maintain sender reputation by suppressing bad addresses.
30 Oct 2022 - Salesforce Help
Technical article
Documentation from Salesforce Developer explains that the `_Bounce` data view in SFMC allows users to query detailed information about individual bounces, including the bounce type, reason, and associated subscriber. This data is critical for advanced bounce management, enabling marketers to analyze trends, identify problematic domains, and segment their lists more effectively.
8 Feb 2025 - Salesforce Developer
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