Types of bounces
Hard bounce
The email address doesn't exist or the domain is invalid. This is permanent — we suppress the address immediately so we never try again.
Soft bounce
A temporary issue prevented delivery — the inbox might be full, the server might be down, or the message might be too large. We retry soft bounces, but after 3 failures the address is suppressed.
Complaints
A complaint happens when someone clicks "Report spam" or "Mark as junk" in their email client. When this happens:
- The person is immediately unsubscribed
- Their address is suppressed
- The complaint is recorded
Why this matters
High bounce and complaint rates damage your sender reputation, which leads to more emails going to spam. SplashSend handles this automatically, but you can help by:
- Only emailing people who want to hear from you
- Making it easy to unsubscribe (it's always better than a spam complaint)
- Keeping your list clean and up to date