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Why emails bounce and how to keep your list healthy

Understand email bounces, complaints, and suppressions in TinyCourier, and learn simple habits that keep your emails landing in the inbox.

If you want your emails to reach people, the single most important thing is a healthy list. This page explains what goes wrong and how to keep things clean.

What is a bounce?

A bounce is an email that couldn’t be delivered. There are two kinds:

  • Hard bounce: the address doesn’t exist (a typo, or a closed account). It will never work, so we stop sending to it automatically.
  • Soft bounce: a temporary problem (a full mailbox, a server hiccup). These often clear up on their own.

A few bounces are normal. Lots of bounces tell inbox providers you might be sending to a bad list, which hurts everyone’s emails from you.

What is a complaint?

A complaint is when someone clicks “mark as spam.” We automatically stop emailing anyone who complains. Keep complaints near zero by only emailing people who genuinely asked for it, and by making your unsubscribe link easy to find.

What is suppression?

When someone hard-bounces, complains, or unsubscribes, we add them to your suppression list. That means we won’t email them again, even by accident. This protects you and respects their choice. It’s a feature, not a problem.

The golden rules for inbox placement

  1. Only email people who opted in. Never buy or scrape lists. This is the #1 cause of trouble.
  2. Use a verified domain. It’s your proof of identity to Gmail and friends.
  3. Send regularly, but not constantly. A quiet list that suddenly gets a big blast looks suspicious.
  4. Watch your stats. Rising bounces or complaints are an early warning. See Understand your campaign stats.
  5. Clean out dead subscribers. People who haven’t opened or clicked in over a year are dead weight, and some old addresses become spam traps that can get you blocked. TinyCourier warns you about these before you send.

”Why did my account get paused?”

If bounce or complaint rates climb too high, sending may be paused to protect you and the platform. It’s almost always caused by an old or purchased list. The fix is to clean your list and only email engaged, opted-in people. Reach out to support and we’ll help you get back on track.

The short version: a smaller list of people who want your emails will always outperform a big list that doesn’t. Quality wins.