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ActionKit: The Blog Tools to Build a Movement Mailbox full? Say goodbye to improve deliverability When a user’s email inbox is full, any email you send to that user won’t be delivered; it will be rejected by that user’s mailbox provider. In many cases, this is a temporary problem; users who are actively checking their email will delete or archive their emails, allowing them to begin receiving email again. But users who are no longer checking their inbox won’t ever delete or archive their emails, and so won’t ever be able to receive email again. When one of your emails is rejected due to a full inbox, this is called a soft bounce. Soft bounces should not be confused with hard bounces, which are due to an email address being permanently unmailable (like emailing an address that doesn’t exist). ActionKit only reports hard bounces on the Mailing Report screen, but we do track these inbox full” soft bounces in our database. ActionKit’s Soft Bounce Handling system allows you to improve your email deliverability by identifying users who have repeatedly had many inbox full” soft bounces in a short period of time and unsubscribe these users. How it works Soft Bounce Handling is configurable. You can choose how many inbox full” soft bounces a user can have in a given period before they’re unsubscribed. For example, in the screenshot below, a user would need to have 3 or more inbox full” soft bounces in a 14-day period in order to be subscribed — a user would NOT be subscribed immediately the first time their inbox became full. Soft Bounce Handling Default Settings If you send very infrequently, you may wish to adjust your settings accordingly. For example, if users don’t commonly receive at least 3 emails from you in a 14-day period, the above settings won’t be very helpful, and setting a longer period like 21 days may be more useful. Less commonly, but senders who send to their users multiple times per day may also want to adjust their settings to require more soft bounces over a given period before being unsubscribed. Off unless checked! Keep in mind that Soft Bounce Handling is off unless the Remove Repeat Soft Bouncers” checkbox is checked, and the Max soft bounces” and Period length” settings won’t do anything. Why does this matter? Mailbox providers determine your sender reputation based on a variety of factors, but it mainly boils down to how users are engaging with your emails: opening, clicking, and reading them. Repeatedly sending to users whose inboxes are full harms your sender reputation a tiny bit, and not sending to users whose inboxes are abandoned helps your sender reputation quite a bit. This setting can lead to small and incremental improvements in your sender reputation. For more details about inbox placement and deliverability, and especially for more impactful deliverability tips, make sure to check out our explainer video . Be sure to also check out our post on Bounce/Delay metrics and how you can use them as an early-warning system to monitor your deliverability . Author Shannon Turner Posted on November 9, 2023 November 9, 2023 Categories Uncategorized Keep an eye on deliverability The Bounce/Delay Metrics screen is meant as an early-warning system for your mailing deliverability, to help identify small problems with your mailing’s deliverability and allow you to make corrections before small problems become large. If you’re new to mailing deliverability or want a refresher on the fundamentals and how mailbox providers like Gmail determine whether your mail gets delivered to the inbox or spam, see our video on Deliverability . When sending mailings, we expect all of our email to be delivered. Usually that’s the case, but there are common reasons why some proportion of your emails don’t get delivered: Some bounces are to be expected, even for senders with perfect sender reputations. For example, if a recipient user has a full mailbox, sending them an email will result in a soft bounce. Soft bounces are typically transient issues, so they clear up on their own. Soft bounces shouldn’t be confused with hard bounces, which are permanent, irrecoverable failures to deliver. Most hard bounces are from emailing an address that no longer exists. Soft bounces aren’t typically harmful to your sender reputation, but hard bounces are — that’s why ActionKit automatically unsubscribes users who hard bounce. Delays When sending mailings, we expect all of our email to be delivered pretty much immediately. Usually that’s the case, but there are some common reasons why some proportion of your emails might get delivered late (delayed). Important note: Bounces and delays happen on every bulk mailing system, not just on ActionKit! Why Delays Happen Delays are common, especially during your warmup (for new clients) or when sending more mailing volume to a given mailbox provider. Each mailbox provider will allow you to send a certain number of emails in a period of time, based on your sender reputation. If you send too many emails too quickly, a mailbox provider like Microsoft may suspect that you’re sending spam, and delay your messages. Groups with better sender reputations at the various mailbox providers will be able to send more email in a short period of time, as they’re more trusted. Groups with a new or weak reputation won’t be able to send a lot of email without having that email delayed by the mailbox providers. When your emails are delayed, they’re more likely to end up in spam when they ultimately get delivered, because the mailbox provider is already looking at your email with more scrutiny. The exact figures for how many emails you can send and how quickly aren’t obvious or transparent — if they were, spammers would be able to easily bypass the mailbox providers’ spam checks and get spam delivered to your inbox. Looking at the Deliverability by Mailbox Provider Report In this report, we have a problem worth paying attention to at Comcast, and possibly at another domain. When looking at delay reports, don’t worry about very small numbers of delays, or if a tiny portion of the recipients at a given provider were delayed. But if you see a large portion of emails at a given provider were delayed, or a large portion of your overall send being delayed, pay attention — that’s an early sign that something’s wrong. What to do when you see delays It can be helpful to think of delays in a green-yellow-red paradigm: Very few delays at a provider or overall (Green): You’re currently sending email within your approved range for your sender reputation, but if you suddenly send a lot more email than is typical for you, you might run into trouble. A significant number of delays at a provider or overall (Yellow): Your send is being delayed by one or more mailbox providers, but after some delays, your email is being delivered. This is common if your sender reputation is just getting established, or if you’re sending more volume than is typical for you. Looking at the reasons for delay at the bottom of the Bounce/Delay metrics screen, if you see explanations like Throttled – try again later” or you have recently hit the rate limit”, this is a sign that you’ve either sent too quickly or too much volume to that mailbox provider. Some of the reasons given by the Mailbox Provider for why they delayed delivering our email. You can send more slowly next time by using the Max emails per second feature on the Targeting screen of your mailing. ActionKit supports sending as slowly as 2 emails per second, which would trickle out a Mailing to 10,000 people in a little under 1.5 hours. Emails Per Second Targeting Size Time Required 2 10,000 ~1.5 hours 10 10,000 ~15 minutes 10 100,000 ~2.75 hours 100 1,000,000 ~2.75 hours Knowing how quickly your mailing will finish sending can help you decide the right level of rate limiting. There’s no hard and fast rule on how quickly or slowly to send — it’s a balance between how timely your mailing is, when...