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Glossary

Common technical terms in email

Stay current and expand your email knowledge with our list of common technical terms.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of emails that bounce back, or the number of emails that couldn’t be delivered to users over the total number of emails sent. The formula is:

Number of undelivered emails / Total number of emails sent * 100 = Bounce rate

For instance, if a brand sends 100 emails and 2 of those emails couldn’t be delivered, the  bounce rate would be 2%.

2/100 * 100 = 2%

Email bounces can be either soft bounces or hard bounces. Soft bounces are temporary delivery outages, while hard bounces are permanent delivery failures. Generally, a bounce rate of 2% is acceptable, although the target number differs across industries. We recommend looking at various factors influencing deliverability, like using double opt-in, validating emails, and complying with authentication protocols.

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