FunnelKit Automations can filter and handle your email bounces.
It uses a custom set of rules and extracts the recipient's addresses, allowing you to send your message or take them off your list.
Before we go ahead and set up bounce handling, let's look at why emails bounce.
Why Do Emails Bounce?
Here are some common reasons why emails bounce:
- The recipient email address entered was wrong
- The sending IP address is blocked
- The email you've sent gets blocked by the server
- The receiving server is unavailable or overloaded
- The receiving mailbox is full
- The sender's email has been blocked by the recipient
- The recipient has enabled the auto-responder
To avoid the route to bounced emails, here's how you can set up bounce handling.
How Does Bounce Handling Work?
FunnelKit Automations integrates with supported email service providers and generates a unique endpoint that listens for bounce events.
When a bounce is detected, FunnelKit Automations automatically updates the contact's status:
- Hard bounces → Bounced
- Soft bounces → Soft Bounced
It also adds a timestamped note to the contact timeline, including the email service provider and bounce details, so you can easily see why a contact stopped receiving emails.
How to Set Up Bounce Handling?
First, you need to go to FunnelKit Automations ⇒ Settings ⇒ Email. Next, under “Email Settings”, check the “Bounce Tracing” option to capture bounced emails from the email service and mark the contact as Bounced
Then select the email service provider.
When bounce tracking is enabled and a bounce is received, FunnelKit Automations automatically updates the contact's status to Bounced or Soft Bounced, depending on the bounce type.
It also adds a timestamped note to the contact's timeline with the bounce details, including the email service provider that reported the bounce. This makes it easy to see exactly why a contact stopped receiving your emails, even months later.
We have provided step-by-step instructions on how you can set up bounce handling for different email service providers below:
Click on the links to your respective providers to set up bounce handling using FunnelKit Automations.
Note: FunnelKit Automations includes a “Contact Soft Bounced” trigger, allowing you to start an automation whenever a soft bounce occurs. Soft-bounced contacts remain eligible for broadcasts by default and are no longer automatically converted to hard bounces after multiple soft-bounce attempts.
You can manually update a contact's status at any time.
How to Set Up Bounce Handling for Other Email Sending Providers?
If your email service provider (ESP) isn’t listed in our bounce handling documentation, you can still manage bounces using a simple workaround.
1. Create an Automation in FunnelKit Automations:
Use the Webhook Received event as the trigger.
Add a Change Status action and set the status to Bounced.
2. Configure Your ESP to Send Bounce Data:
Set up your ESP to send the email address information to the webhook URL whenever an email bounces.
Once the ESP marks an email as bounced, FunnelKit Automations will receive the email data and automatically update the contact’s status to Bounced.
This ensures your email list remains clean and improves deliverability.
