Bounced Emails

Summary

• What is a Bounced Email? 
• Why do Emails Bounce?
• What happens in Chime when emails bounce? 
• I have never sent an emails to a specific lead, so why is their email address marked as "bounced"?
• If a lead has opened my emails at some point in time, why is their email address still marked as "bounced"?

What is a Bounced Email? 

This refers to an email that is returned to the sender because it cannot be delivered for some reason. For example, some leads may enter fake email addresses when they register on your website or other platforms, which means these emails probably do not exist at all. So, when you try to send an email to them, our email provider will notify us that the email you send has been returned due to being undeliverable.

Why do Emails Bounce?

Here are the general reasons why emails bounce:

1. A non-existent email address

In the example mentioned previously, a fake or non-existent email address will result in your message getting bounced back to you. Though some leads may use a fake email address due to privacy concerns, it is also possible that the email address may have been misspelled. In either case, the end result is a bounced email.

2. Undeliverable email 

This could mean that the receiving email server was temporarily unavailable, overloaded, or could not be found.

3. Mailbox is full

If the recipient's email inbox has reached its full capacity for emails, they will not be able to receive any new messages. Your emails will bounce back until some emails are erased and the inbox has enough space to receive new emails.

4. Message is too large

The recipient's email provider sent a bounce message because the message sent was too large. You may be able to send a message to the same recipient if you reduce the size of the message.

5. Content Rejected

The recipient's email provider sent a bounce message because the message you sent contains content that the provider does not allow. You might be able to send a message to the same recipient if you change the content of the message. 

6. Other (Undetermined)

The recipient's email provider sent a bounce message. The bounce message did not contain enough information for our email provider to determine the reason for having bounced.

What happens in Chime when emails bounce? 

A bounced timeline entry will be generated showing the corresponding bounced email:

The email status will be marked as "bounced":

If the lead's email has temporary bounce issue, and they should be good after that. You can click the Bounced icon and Choose Valid Email to continue sending emails to this lead.

**IMPORTANT:

Chime's email provider has a strict regulation regarding bounce rates. So, if the bounce rate is more than 10% during 15 minute time range and you are sending more than 500 emails, your email service will be suspended for two hours.

Bounced emails are not good for your email list. It also has a negative impact on Chime's email delivery reputation which needs to be maintained. We suggest you remove the address from your list once you have been notified of a bounced email.

I have never sent an emails to a specific lead, so why is their email address marked as "bounced"?

This is likely due to one of the two reasons outlined here:

1. If the lead was imported in a CSV file (see Lead Import), the Chime system will call a third-party API to determine the validity of the lead's email address. Chime will mark the lead's email status as "Bounced" if the results provided by the third-party indicate that it is an "invalid email." FYI: The accuracy level of this third-party API is typically between 90% - 97%.
2. If other agents have sent emails to this lead before and their emails were bounced multiple times, then Chime will mark this email address as "Bounced" for all leads using this email address.

Please note that if you know the email is valid, you can manually change the status of that address on a lead profile by selecting the "email" icon to the left of the address and selecting "Valid Email."

If a lead has opened my emails at some point in time, why is their email address still marked as "bounced"?

This could be related to one of the following:

1. Sometimes, the email servers used by leads are not stable when receiving emails meaning that on occasion emails sent to their server will be bounced. To avoid this, reach out to the lead and have them add your @chime.me email address (see @chime.me Email Address) to their email server whitelist or add it to their contact list.
2. Some email accounts are not used for a long time and the email provider will oftentimes disable email accounts due to inactivity.

Questions?

If you have any questions regarding this topic or any others, please reach out to our Support Team via email at <support@chimeinc.com> or by phone at 1 (855) 981-7557.