The bounce management feature in our Email Marketing software works by connecting to a POP email account (or reading in messages through a pipe script), and scanning each email message it finds to see if there is a “bounce code” present. A bounce code is typically a three digit number, starting with 5, in this form: 5.X.X. Almost all bounce email messages will contain an error message explaining why the message bounced, along with a standard bounce code.
If the bounce management function in our software does not find a valid “bounce code” within the content of a bounce message, it will assume that that message was not a valid bounce message. That message will then be discarded, and it will not be recorded as a bounce within your campaign report.
Below are the most common reasons a message would not contain a bounce code:
- The message is not actually a bounce, but rather an email coming from a different source. It could be a spam message that was sent to your bounce email address, or it could be a legitimate email that someone has sent to your bounce email account. Make sure you never set up bounce management in our software to use an email account that you are using for other purposes.
- The mail server that generated the bounce message (it could be your local mail server in some cases, or the receiving-end mail server in other cases) did not include a bounce code in the format 5.X.X in the bounce message.
- There was a three-digit bounce code in the body of the bounce message, but it is not included in the list of bounce codes that our software checks for.
If you conclude that the problem is either #2 or #3, you can easily edit the list of bounce codes that our software checks for, to include other bounce codes or even error messages. To see or edit the list of bounce codes and error messages that our software checks for when it parses bounce email messages, go to Lists -> Bounce Settings, and click “Bounce Codes” in the upper right.
