Overloop.ai records a bounce when an email cannot be delivered to the prospect. Emails can bounce for various reasons; depending on those reasons, there are two types of bounces: hard and soft.
Hard vs. Soft Bounces
When an email bounces, the recipient's (prospect's) server will send you an email notification with an error message indicating the issue. Depending on whether or not that issue is permanent, we speak of a hard or soft bounce.
Soft bounce
A soft bounce happens when an email cannot be delivered to the prospect due to temporary issues. For example, the recipient's mailbox is full, or the mail server is temporarily unavailable.
This means that, in general, the prospect's email address is valid, and you can try to re-send the email later.
Hard bounce
A hard bounce happens due to a permanent failure. For instance, when the prospect's email address is invalid.
If a hard bounce happens, our system will no longer send emails to this address.
How the bounce rate affects deliverability
A high bounce rate is bad for the reputation of your sending address and domain name.
A bad reputation causes your emails to end up in the prospects' SPAM folder, which in turn prospects to low open, click, and reply rates.
It may also be the reason for your Email Service Provider (ESP) lowering your sending limits or even blocking your email account. This is why keeping your bounce rate as low as possible is important.
How to lower your bounce rate
You can never ensure a 0% bounce rate, but there's a lot you can do to prevent your emails from bouncing back and improve your deliverability. Because yes, email deliverability is really important.
Configure a CNAME for click tracking (only for account administrators): By configuring your dedicated tracking domain, you don't have to share a common tracking IP whose reputation might have been harmed by other, less careful users.
Configuring your DKIM and SPF records to authenticate yourself as the domain name owner from whom you send emails.
Add bounced prospect to the exclusion list
You can also choose to add prospects to your exclusion list when an email hard-bounces or soft-bounces in Settings > Bounces & Out-of-office Replies.
If you only use email for outreach, please add bounced prospects to the exclusion list.
However, if you also plan to connect via LinkedIn, avoid enabling this option to ensure these prospects remain accessible for your LinkedIn campaigns.