What is Salesforce Email Bounce? Hard vs Soft Bounces

Core Content

Email bounces represent failed delivery attempts and carry significant implications for your Salesforce email operations. Understanding bounce types, causes, and management strategies is essential for maintaining healthy email deliverability and protecting your sending reputation.

Hard Bounces vs. Soft Bounces:

Hard Bounces are permanent delivery failures that occur when the recipient's email address is invalid, doesn't exist, or the domain is no longer active. Common causes include typos in email addresses, deleted accounts, or fake addresses. Hard bounces should be removed from your contact list immediately—continuing to send to these addresses damages your sender reputation and signals poor list quality to email providers.

Soft Bounces are temporary delivery failures caused by issues like full mailboxes, temporarily unavailable servers, message size limits, or recipient vacation auto-responders. Salesforce typically retries soft bounces for a period before classifying them as permanent failures. While less severe than hard bounces, persistently soft-bouncing addresses should eventually be removed or investigated.

Common Bounce Causes:

Invalid or non-existent email addresses generate hard bounces—often resulting from manual data entry errors, outdated contact information, or deliberately fake addresses. Full mailboxes cause soft bounces, particularly common with free email providers where users exceed storage limits. Server-related issues like temporary DNS failures, overloaded mail servers, or network problems create soft bounces. Content-related bounces occur when your message is too large, contains blocked attachments, or triggers recipient server filters.

Impact on Deliverability:

Bounce rates directly affect your domain reputation with email providers. High bounce rates (above 2-3%) signal to Gmail, Outlook, and other providers that you're sending to unverified lists or practicing poor list hygiene. This damages your reputation and causes future emails—even to valid addresses—to land in spam folders or be blocked entirely. Organizations like Opal Group maintain pristine bounce rates through rigorous email verification and list maintenance.

Salesforce Bounce Tracking:

Salesforce automatically tracks bounces and updates the Email Bounce Date and Email Bounce Reason fields on Contact and Lead records. The system can automatically set the Email Opt Out field for hard bounces, preventing future sends to invalid addresses. However, this requires proper configuration and doesn't cover all bounce scenarios without additional tools.

Bounce Management Best Practices:

Remove hard bounces immediately after detection. Monitor soft bounces and remove addresses that consistently soft bounce over 7-10 days. Implement email verification at the point of entry using real-time validation services. Regularly clean your database by identifying and removing inactive, outdated, or suspicious email addresses. Use double opt-in for new subscribers to ensure valid addresses from the start. For comprehensive strategies, see our complete Salesforce email bounce management guide.

Native solutions like MassMailer include built-in verification and bounce management features that automatically maintain list health while keeping all data within your Salesforce org.

Key Takeaways

Two bounce types : Hard bounces are permanent failures requiring immediate removal; soft bounces are temporary issues

2% threshold matters : Bounce rates above 2% damage sender reputation and trigger email provider penalties

Immediate action required : Remove hard bounces immediately to protect deliverability and sender reputation

Prevention beats remediation : Email verification at the point of entry prevents most bounces before they occur

Monitor patterns : Sudden bounce spikes indicate data quality issues, integration problems, or purchased lists

Integration essential : Bounce data should automatically update Salesforce records, preventing future sends

Eliminate email bounces before they happen with MassMailer's built-in verification and automated bounce management. Keep your list clean, protect your sender reputation, and maximize deliverability—all natively within Salesforce. Start reducing bounces →

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between hard and soft bounces?

Hard bounces are permanent delivery failures (invalid addresses, non-existent domains) requiring immediate removal. Soft bounces are temporary issues (full mailboxes, server problems) that may resolve—Salesforce retries these for several days before marking them permanent.

What's an acceptable email bounce rate?

Under 2% is good, 2-5% needs attention, and above 5% severely damages deliverability. Industry best practices recommend keeping bounce rates below 2% through active list maintenance and email verification.

How do I remove bounced emails from Salesforce?

Create a List View filtering contacts/leads with "Email Bounce Date" not empty, review bounce reasons, and either update invalid addresses or mark Email Opt Out as true. For automation, configure Salesforce to automatically opt out hard bounces or use bounce management tools.

Why did my email bounce back?

Check the Email Bounce Reason field on the Contact/Lead record. Common reasons include invalid email address (hard bounce), mailbox full (soft bounce), recipient server rejection, or content/size issues triggering filters.

How do bounces affect my email limit?

Bounced emails still count toward your 5,000 daily email limit. This means bounces waste your quota on undeliverable addresses, making proactive bounce management critical for organizations approaching limits.