The Easiest Way to Track and Reduce Amazon SES Bounces

High bounce rates can damage your sender reputation and waste your Amazon SES sending quota. Learn how to effectively track, analyze, and reduce bounces.

Understanding Amazon SES Bounces

Amazon SES categorizes bounces into two types:

Hard Bounces

Permanent delivery failures that won't resolve over time:

• Email address doesn't exist
• Domain doesn't exist
• Recipient email server blocks delivery permanently

Soft Bounces

Temporary delivery failures that might resolve:

• Mailbox full
• Temporary server issues
• Message too large
• Temporary content blocks

Why Bounce Tracking Matters

• Reputation Protection: High bounce rates damage your sender score
• Quota Management: Bounces count toward your daily sending limit
• Cost Efficiency: Avoid wasting money sending to invalid addresses
• Compliance: AWS may suspend accounts with high bounce rates (over 5%)

Setting Up Bounce Tracking

Step 1: Configure SNS Notifications

1. Go to Amazon SES Console
2. Navigate to Configuration Sets
3. Create a new configuration set
4. Add an SNS destination for bounce notifications
5. Create an SNS topic for bounces
6. Subscribe to the topic (email, HTTP endpoint, or Lambda)

Step 2: Set Up CloudWatch Metrics

1. Enable CloudWatch in your SES configuration set
2. Monitor these key metrics:
   - Bounces
   - Bounce rate
   - Complaints
   - Sends
3. Create CloudWatch alarms for high bounce rates

Step 3: Implement Automated Processing

Use AWS Lambda to automatically process bounce notifications:

const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
const dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB.DocumentClient();

exports.handler = async (event) => {
  const message = JSON.parse(event.Records[0].Sns.Message);

  if (message.notificationType === 'Bounce') {
    const bounce = message.bounce;

    for (const recipient of bounce.bouncedRecipients) {
      // Store bounce in database
      await dynamodb.put({
        TableName: 'email_bounces',
        Item: {
          email: recipient.emailAddress,
          bounceType: bounce.bounceType,
          timestamp: new Date().toISOString(),
          diagnosticCode: recipient.diagnosticCode
        }
      }).promise();

      // Remove from active list if hard bounce
      if (bounce.bounceType === 'Permanent') {
        await removeFromMailingList(recipient.emailAddress);
      }
    }
  }
};

Best Practices for Reducing Bounces

1. Implement Double Opt-In

Require email verification before adding to your list:

• Confirms email address is valid
• Ensures recipient wants to receive emails
• Reduces typos and fake addresses

2. Validate Email Addresses

Use email validation at signup:

• Check syntax format
• Verify domain exists
• Use real-time validation APIs
• Block disposable email addresses

3. Regularly Clean Your List

• Remove hard bounces immediately
• Remove addresses with repeated soft bounces (after 3-5 attempts)
• Clean inactive subscribers every 6 months
• Use re-engagement campaigns before removal

4. Monitor Bounce Rates by Campaign

• Track which campaigns have high bounces
• Identify problematic list sources
• Test different subject lines and content
• Segment lists to isolate issues

5. Implement Bounce Handling Automatically

• Auto-suppress hard bounces
• Flag soft bounces for review
• Create suppression lists
• Integrate with your CRM or database

Using MoonMail for Bounce Management

MoonMail automatically handles bounce tracking and management when using Amazon SES:

Automatic Bounce Handling

• Automatically processes SES bounce notifications
• Instantly suppresses hard bounced addresses
• Tracks soft bounces and retries intelligently
• Real-time dashboard showing bounce rates

Built-In List Hygiene

• Automatic list cleaning
• Bounce history for every email
• Downloadable bounce reports
• Email validation at import

Analytics and Insights

• Bounce rate by campaign
• Bounce type breakdown
• Trend analysis over time
• Alerts for unusual bounce rates

Maintaining a Healthy Bounce Rate

Target Bounce Rates

• Excellent: Under 2%
• Good: 2-5%
• Warning: 5-10%
• Critical: Over 10% (risk of account suspension)

Monthly Maintenance Tasks

1. Review bounce reports
2. Update suppression lists
3. Analyze bounce trends
4. Clean inactive subscribers
5. Verify email collection processes
6. Test email validation systems

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Ignoring soft bounces: Repeated soft bounces should be addressed
• Not acting on hard bounces: Remove immediately
• Buying email lists: Guaranteed high bounce rates
• No validation: Allows typos and fake emails
• Irregular list cleaning: Bounces accumulate over time

Conclusion

Tracking and reducing Amazon SES bounces is essential for maintaining a healthy sender reputation and maximizing deliverability. Implement automated bounce handling, regularly clean your lists, and use proper validation techniques to keep bounce rates low.

For the easiest bounce management experience, consider using MoonMail, which handles all the technical complexity automatically while giving you full visibility into your bounce metrics.