How to Reduce SES Bounce Rate with AWS Strategies

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Understanding your bounce rate in the SES console is key to managing your email sending reputation. The bounce rate shown is based on your recent sending activity, but it mainly counts only hard bounces. Hard bounces happen when emails can’t be delivered permanently, such as when the email address no longer exists. Soft bounces, which are temporary issues like a full inbox or a server problem, do not count toward your bounce rate.

If you’re sending to valid addresses but notice your bounce rate isn’t going down, don’t worry. That typically happens because bounce rates are calculated over time. It takes a while of sending clean, valid emails with few bounces for the rate to drop. The old bounce data gradually moves out of the calculation as new data becomes available.

Make sure you are checking the right stats. You can get detailed bounce information through the SES console or the GetSendStatistics API. These tools show you the actual number of bounces versus total emails sent, giving you an accurate picture of your email deliverability.

To keep bounce rates low and prevent problems, it’s a good idea to validate email addresses before sending. You can do this in real time as collects emails or automatically filter out addresses that look suspicious or are likely to bounce before you send. This proactive step is much more effective than trying to clean up bounces after they happen.

Also, handle bounce notifications properly. When an email bounces, remove that address from your mailing lists immediately to avoid repeated attempts to deliver to invalid addresses. Continuing to send to bounced addresses can hurt your sender reputation.

It’s important to keep your bounce rate below 5%. Sending emails to invalid addresses at a higher rate can lead to warnings from email providers. If your bounce rate exceeds 10%, you risk email throttling or even getting your sending abilities blocked. Staying on top of your bounce management helps keep your email outreach healthy and effective.