email-marketing
What is Bounce Rate?
The percentage of emails that could not be delivered to the recipient's inbox, either because the address doesn't exist (hard bounce) or due to a temporary issue (soft bounce).
In plain English
Bounce rate is a critical email list health metric. Hard bounces (invalid addresses) should be removed from your list immediately — keeping them tanks your sender reputation and deliverability. Soft bounces (full inbox, temporary server issues) can be retried, but persistent soft bouncers should also be cleaned. Keeping your bounce rate below 2% is the industry standard. High bounce rates are often the first sign that a list hasn't been properly maintained or that contacts were added from low-quality sources.