Email tracking and bounce management
Bloomreach Engagement provides out-of-the-box email tracking and bounce management for all of our email provider integrations to enable our users to analyze:
- Email performance
- Deliverability
- Email list health
Email tracking
Email campaigns generate campaign events
for all customers in the audience of the campaign, covering actions from the email being sent from Bloomreach Engagement to customers opening and clicking the email. Read more about the structure of campaign events in the System events article.
Email delivery status
Email campaign events contain a status
attribute describing different steps of email delivery and interactions. The status
attribute can be divided into:
- Send from Bloomreach Engagement
- Deliver the email
- User interactions
Send from Bloomreach Engagement
Status | Description |
---|---|
enqueued | Bloomreach Engagement enqueued the email to the email provider. |
enqueue_failed | Bloomreach Engagement could not enqueue the email either due to an error on the provider side (connection error) or on the Bloomreach Engagement side (for example, error in Jinja). The attribute message will contain details of the error. A missing email property in a customer profile doesn't generate enqueue_failed events; the same applies to phones, for example. |
suppressed | Bloomreach Engagement suppressed the email due to one of the following: missing consent, Frequency policy, Cumulative bounce, Suppression lists, or Email list hygiene filter. The attribute type and message will contain details of the suppression type. |
Deliver the email
Status | Description |
---|---|
delivered | The email provider confirmed the delivery of the email. The confirmation comes in the form of a successful (2.x.y) SMTP response from the recipient server. However, the recipient server sets the definition of a delivered email, meaning no distinction is made between emails that reach the recipient's inbox or spam folder. |
soft_bounced, hard_bounced, preblocked | The email provider notified Bloomreach Engagement that the email bounced and was not delivered. See section Bounce management for more details. |
User interactions
Status | Description |
---|---|
opened | The customer opened the email (the pixel in the email was loaded). Note that some services block these pixels, which may result in customers who only have the clicked event tracked, without opened . |
clicked | The customer clicked on a link inside the email. This also includes clicking on the unsubscribe link. |
unsubscribed | User unsubscribed using List unsubscribe. |
complained | The customer marked the email as spam. See section Bounce management for more details. |
Bounce management
Email messages that weren't successfully delivered to an email address constitute an email bounce. This will result in an automatic email response from the mail server or mailbox provider like Gmail, notifying the email sender of the non-delivery and other information. Bloomreach Engagement automatically processes these responses from email providers and assigns every unsuccessful email delivery attempt into one of the following bounce categories:
Soft bounce
Emails could not be delivered because of temporary problems, such as the domain being temporarily down.
Action: Track campaign event with status=soft_bounced
Hard bounce
Emails could not be delivered because of permanent problems, such as the address being undeliverable, for example, it doesn’t exist.
Action:
- Track campaign event with
status=hard_bounced
- Invalidate the contact
Cumulative soft bounce
Emails could not be delivered because of problems that can be temporary or permanent, such as missing MX records for the domain or full inbox. See the Cumulative Bounce Logic section for more details.
Action: Track campaign event with status=soft_bounced
and cumulative=true
Only for Mailgun
Cumulative bounce is only available for Mailgun.
Preblocked
Emails could not be delivered because they were blocked by the email service provider, e.g. when the address is on the suppression list of the provider.
Action:
- Track campaign event with
status=preblocked
- Invalidate the contact
Complained
Emails were delivered, and the recipient marked them as spam.
Action:
- Track campaign event with status=complained
- Revoke consent used for sending the particular campaign
Important
Bloomreach itself doesn't receive spam complaints from Gmail. However, it's possible to monitor this data with Google Postmaster tools.
Invalidate a contact
In case of permanent bounces such as hard bounce or preblocked, Bloomreach Engagement automatically invalidates the contact to prevent further attempts to send emails and protect your IP reputation and deliverability.
Action: Customer attribute email_invalid
set to true
Email property will be blocked, but you can still send an email with other properties (that is, SMS or MMS). email_invalid
property can be marked as invalid from each invalid recipient property, not only email property.
The email_invalid
property can be marked as invalid not just based on the email property but also based on any other property associated with an invalid recipient (for example, if the recipient's name or address is invalid, it can contribute to marking the email_invalid
property as true
).
Campaigns where invalid other_email_property
and email_invalid = TRUE
were used, will receive the status = preblocked
.
invalid_contact
Track event invalid_contact
containing details about the invalidation:
Channel
: lists the channel through which you approach your customer's invalid contact details (example: email)Contact_info
: lists the customer's exact email address that was deemed invalidReason
: lists the reason why was the email address deemed invalidSource
: identifies which source determined that the contact is invalid (example: Bloomreach Engagement / ESP).
Once email_invalid
attribute is set for a customer profile, Bloomreach Engagement will automatically exclude such a profile from all email campaigns and won't try to send further emails.
Important
Setting the
email_invalid
flag doesn't affect transactional emails. We always try to send those regardless of any suppression.
Cumulative bounce logic
Only for Mailgun
Cumulative bounce is only available for Mailgun.
Cumulative bounce logic is applied to bounces that can either be temporary or permanent and only after repeated failed attempts can we confidently classify it as a permanent bounce. Cumulative bounce logic will watch for repeated soft bounces with attribute cumulative=true and based on the defined rules will first result in temporary suppression and eventually in permanent suppression.
Temporary suppression
Will temporarily suppress email addresses for a defined period of time (7 days). This will result in a campaign event with status=”suppressed” and message=”Temporarily suppressed due to repeated soft bounces for this email address” and valid_until=timestamp
.
Permanent suppression
Will permanently suppress email address and invalidate the contact, tracking event invalid_contact with reason=“Permanently suppressed due to repeated soft bounces for this email address”.
Rules for the cumulative bounce
- If there are 3 consecutive soft bounces in 7 days or 5 consecutive soft bounces over any timeframe, this will lead to temporary suppression for 7 days.
- After the temporary suppression expires, 1 soft bounce consecutively after that will lead to permanent suppression.
Note
Consecutive soft bounces mean no signs of activity (delivered/open/click campaign events) in between soft bounces (with attribute cumulative=true)
These rules are evaluated at the time of the next campaign sending attempt. For example:
- If the next sending attempt is within the period of temporary suppression (7 days since the last soft bounce), the sending will be blocked and result in a campaign event with status=”suppressed” and message=”Temporarily suppressed due to repeated soft bounces for this email address”
- If the customer already has 3 soft bounces, the temporary suppression period is over, and they have another soft bounce, they won't get permanently suppressed immediately after the last soft bounce. Permanent suppression will appear with the next campaign sending attempt.
Cumulative logic will not apply if the email property does not match the recipient in the soft bounce events counted in the cumulative bounce
Email bounces investigation
This guide mainly serves during warm-up process but is fully applicable even after the warm-up process, in case you run into email deliverability issues. At any point, you can take these steps to better understand your issue and what are the next steps to mitigate it.
Plug & Play warm-up use case
To solve email bounces, ask your Customer Success Manager, Business Consultant, or Partner Manager for access to the “Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case”. It consists of standardized reports with insights into bounce issues.
The investigation process consists of these steps:
- Monitor the main indicator = the delivery rate.
- Identify the impacted ISPs and bounce rates.
- Take action.
Delivery rate
The recommended delivery rate during the warm-up is above 99%.
- Any delivery rate between 99-98% is still fine but requires closer monitoring.
- If the delivery rate doesn't improve after 3 sends, investigate.
- Any delivery rate below 98% should be investigated sooner rather than later.
- Any delivery rate below 95% requires immediate investigation.
ISPs and bounce analysis
Review the 'Email reporting - last 14 days - combined with recipient domain' report in the Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case where you create a new metric, the soft bounce rate, by cloning the hard bounce rate and replacing the hard_bounce and bounced with the soft_bounce values in the status attribute.
The report gives you an overview and trend analysis of the hard/soft bounce rates evolution over the last 14 days for each ISP. It also allows monitoring of the impact of amendments made after the investigation.
Actions for higher soft_bounce rates
Review the matrix for problem solving.
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A. If the soft bounce rate is ISP specific, that is, only 1 ISP is affected, and the soft bounce rate is between 0.5%- 2%.
Apply the sending throttling node to the contacts from the affected ISP and extend the sending time to 240 minutes for the next 2 sends. Monitor the soft bounce rate and reevaluate after 2 sendings if the soft bounce rate drops below 0.5%. If this is not the case, prepare a summary of the error codes and messages from the 'Soft_bounced messages [last 48 hours]' report to be found within the Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case and share it with the regional emailing specialist.
Also investigate the daily sending volumes and look for potential spikes. If this is the case, there can be temporary damage to the reputation. The sending according to the warm up plan with consistent frequency and volume, targeting the engaged audience should fix the issues.
B. If the high soft bounce rate is non ISP specific ie. multiple ISPs are affected but the soft_bounce rate is lower than 2%.
Apply the sending throttling node to the next 2 sendings and extend the sending time to 240 minutes. Then monitor the soft bounce rate and reevaluate after 1 sending if the softbounce rate dropped below 0.5%. If this is not the case, prepare a summary of the error codes and messages from the 'Softbounced messages [last 48 hours]' report to be found within Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case and share it with the regional emailing specialist.
Also investigate the daily sending volumes and look for potential spikes. If this is the case, there can be temporary damage to the reputation. The sending according to the warm up plan with consistent frequency and volume, targeting the engaged audience should fix the issues.
C. If the high soft bounce rate is above 2% for one or multiple ISPs.
Prepare a summary of the error codes and message from the 'Soft_bounced messages [last 48 hours]' from Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case report and share it with the regional emailing specialist.
Error codes and actions
These are specific error codes from the 'Soft_bounced messages [last 48 hours]' (Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case) report that need a litigation or further investigation with one of our emailing specialists:
Error code | Action |
---|---|
Banned sending IP [xxx.xx.xx.xx] | IP needs to be removed from the blocklist. Contact the regional deliverability specialists. |
Too old | usually, Microsoft contacts are impacted due to IP reputation, reach out to regional specialists. This message means there were 8 attempts to deliver an email across 8+ hours, with no response. A shared IP with a good reputation might be needed or a further throttling for the Microsoft contacts |
Server temporarily unavailable | No action is needed. |
The email account you’re trying to reach is disabled | No action is needed. |
Message rejected due to possible spam content | Review campaign visuals, such as text-to-image ratio. |
Mailbox full | No action is needed. |
Account is full (quota exceeded) | No action is needed. |
SPF check failed/ SPF Policy Rejection/SPF Sender Invalid | SPF records of the domain were amended. Contact the regional emailing specialist. |
Actions for higher hard_bounce rates
See the matrix for problem solving:
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A. If the hard bounce rate is 0.5-1% and only 1 ISP is affected.
Monitor the performance and the hard_bounce rate over the next 1 sending day. It’s possibly a result of adding new audiences with email addresses that are not valid anymore. If the mail validation was completed and/or the hard bounce rate will not drop below 0.5%, prepare a summary of the errors from the 'Hard_bounced messages [last 48 hours]' (Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case) report and share it with the regional emailing specialist.
B. If the hard bounce rate is above 1.5% and only 1 ISP is affected.
Prepare a summary of the errors from the 'Hard_bounced messages [last 48 hours]' (Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case) report and share it with the regional emailing specialist.
C. If the hard bounce rate is higher than 0.5% and multiple ISPs are affected.
The domain or IP reputation may be at risk, please prepare a summary of the errors from the 'Hard_bounced messages [last 48 hours]' (Plug & Play Warm-up Use Case) report and share it with the regional emailing specialist.
Reengage permanently bounced profiles
In certain situations, you may need to revert a permanently bounced profile. To reengage such a profile, follow these two steps:
1. Update email_invalid
customer attribute
email_invalid
customer attributeSet email_invalid
customer attribute to false. This change will make the profile eligible for email sending again.
2. Track revalidated campaign event
Track a campaign event with the status=revalidated
. It ensures that the previous soft_bounce
events are not considered, preventing the profile from being immediately considered for cumulative bounce and permanently bounced again.
Required campaign event structure:
- status –
revalidated
(mandatory) - recipient – The email address associated with the profile/bounces (mandatory). It should match the profile's current email attribute.
- message – Custom message containing the reason for revalidation (optional). Use this field to capture the reasoning behind the revalidation for your needs.
Warning
Use this method with caution. Re-engaging permanently bounced profiles can negatively impact your domain reputation and deliverability. Consider the potential consequences before proceeding.
Updated 4 days ago