Why your emails bounced or rejected and how to fix the problem.

There are several reasons why recipient email servers can reject emails. ESP returns a message reflecting the response provided by the recipient’s server.

Reason 1: The email account that you tried to reach” does not exist

Your recipient’s address might not work or exist anymore. Or, you might’ve entered it with a typo.

Solution

1. Check for these common mistakes in the address you’re emailing:

• Spelling errors
• Dots at the end of the address
• Quotation marks
• Spaces before or after an address

2. Search your contacts for a different address that the same person uses.

If you got this error while emailing someone at your work, school, or other organization, contact your administrator.

Reason 2: Message flagged as spam” or “Message temporarily rejected”

• Your message text or links look suspicious.
• You added a large group of recipients to Cc or Bcc.

Solution

1. Remove links to websites asking for personal information.
2. If you’re emailing a large group, create a group with Google Groups, then email that group.

Reason 3: The recipient server did not accept our requests”

You’ll see this error message if ESP can’t connect to your recipient’s email server.

Solution

The problem usually goes away quickly without you doing anything. Try sending the email again later. If you keep getting the error:

1. Check if there are any mistakes in the recipient’s email address.
2. Contact the customer support team of your recipient’s email provider.
3. Contact your administrator. 

Your email marketing database may contain a lot of incorrect email addresses, which could lead to hard bounces and damage your domain reputation.

If you're seeing a lot of bounced emails, spam complaints, and low open rates, it might be time to take a closer look at your email list. Manually cleaning your list can be time-consuming, but there are some great tools out there that can help.

Bulk email verifiers can help you get rid of bad contacts, reduce bounces, and improve your overall metrics. Some of my favorites are Zerobounce and Kickbox.