An email envelope with a green checkmark, surrounded by graphs and metrics, set against a bright background, symbolizing successful email marketing performance.

How To Track Email Deliverability & Bounce Rates

Last Updated On:
February 19, 2025
Written By:
Truitt Dill

Introduction

Email deliverability is crucial for successful email marketing campaigns. Every undelivered email means a missed chance to connect with your audience, increase engagement, and make money.

Imagine this: You've created the perfect email campaign, but 20% of your messages never reach their intended recipients. This is the reality many marketers face when dealing with bounce rates – those annoying failed delivery notifications that can hurt your sender reputation.

Why tracking matters:

  • Your email deliverability rate directly impacts campaign ROI
  • High bounce rates can trigger spam filters and blacklisting
  • Poor delivery metrics can harm your brand's credibility
  • Undelivered emails waste marketing resources

This guide will teach you how to monitor your email deliverability performance using essential metrics and tools. You'll discover how to:

  • Identify different types of bounces
  • Track key deliverability metrics
  • Implement proven strategies to improve delivery rates
  • Use email service provider tools effectively

Ready to boost your email marketing success? Let's dive into the world of email deliverability tracking.

Understanding Email Deliverability

Email deliverability is the ability of your emails to successfully land in recipients' inboxes instead of spam folders or getting blocked completely. It's like tracking your email's journey from when you hit send to when it gets delivered.

Key Factors Affecting Deliverability:

  • Sender Reputation - Your digital fingerprint in the email world
  • Previous sending patterns
  • Spam complaint rates
  • Authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)
  • IP address history
  • Content QualityRelevant, engaging subject lines
  • Balanced text-to-image ratios
  • Clean HTML code
  • Mobile-friendly design
  • Spam trigger word avoidance

Essential Metrics to Track:

Inbox Placement Rate (IPR)

  • Good: >90%
  • Acceptable: 60-89%
  • Poor: <60%

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

  • Good: >3%
  • Acceptable: 1-2.9%
  • Poor: <1%

Open Rate Benchmarks

  • Good: >17%
  • Acceptable: 10-17%
  • Poor: <10%

Your email service provider (ESP) plays a crucial role in tracking these metrics. Built-in analytics tools help monitor performance and identify potential deliverability issues before they impact your campaigns. Regularly checking these numbers helps keep your sender reputation scores healthy and ensures your messages reach the people you want them to.

Types of Bounce Rates

Email bounces happen when your messages fail to reach their intended recipients. Let's dive into the two main types of bounces you'll encounter:

1. Hard Bounces

Hard bounces are permanent delivery failures with no retry attempts. They occur due to reasons such as:

  • Invalid or non-existent email addresses
  • Blocked domains
  • Terminated email accounts
  • Incorrect domain names

Hard bounces signal serious delivery issues that won't resolve on their own. Most Email Service Providers (ESPs) automatically suppress these addresses to protect your sender reputation.

2. Soft Bounces

Soft bounces are temporary delivery failures that allow multiple delivery attempts over a set timeframe. Common causes of soft bounces include:

  • Full mailboxes
  • Server downtime
  • Message size too large
  • Recipient's auto-reply settings
  • Network connectivity issues

Your ESP typically tries to resend these messages for up to 72 hours.

Impact on Deliverability

The bounce rates have a direct impact on your email deliverability:

  • High hard bounce rates (>2%) indicate poor list quality
  • Repeated soft bounces to the same address may convert to hard bounces
  • ESPs track bounce patterns to assess sender reputation
  • Clean lists maintain lower bounce rates and better deliverability

Best Practice Tip: Monitor your bounce notifications closely to identify patterns. A sudden spike in either bounce type could signal underlying issues with your email program that need immediate attention.

Tracking Email Deliverability Metrics

Regular monitoring of email metrics is crucial for campaign success. Let's dive into the essential metrics and tools you need to track your email performance effectively.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Monitor:

Inbox Placement Rate (IPR)

  • Good: >90%
  • Acceptable: 60-89%
  • Poor: <60%

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

  • Good: >3%
  • Acceptable: 1-2.9%
  • Poor: <1%

Open Rate Benchmarks

  • Good: >17%
  • Acceptable: 10-17%
  • Poor: <10%

Essential Tracking Tools:

Email Service Provider (ESP) Analytics

  • HubSpot
  • Brevo
  • MailChimp
  • Built-in reporting dashboards

Specialized Monitoring Tools

  • Mail-tester.com: Comprehensive deliverability analysis
  • MXtoolbox.com: Domain record verification
  • Ipqualityscore.com: IP reputation monitoring
  • Aboutmy.email: Sender reputation tracking

Advanced Metrics to Watch:

  • List Growth Rate
  • Email Sharing/Forwarding Rate
  • Conversion Rate
  • Spam Complaint Rate
  • Unsubscribe Rate

These metrics paint a complete picture of your email campaign performance. Real-time monitoring allows quick identification of potential issues and immediate action to maintain optimal deliverability rates.

Pro Tip: Set up automated alerts for significant metric changes to catch potential problems early. Many ESPs offer this feature in their dashboard settings.

Utilizing Reliable Email Service Providers (ESPs)

Reputable Email Service Providers offer powerful built-in analytics tools that streamline your email marketing efforts. These platforms provide:

  • Real-time tracking dashboards displaying crucial metrics like delivery rates, bounce statistics, spam complaints, and authentication status.
  • Automated bounce handling with instant removal of hard bounces, smart retry attempts for soft bounces, and list cleaning recommendations.
  • Advanced reporting features including custom report generation, data visualization tools, and trend analysis capabilities.

Leading ESPs like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft Smart Network Data Service provide detailed insights into:

  • Domain reputation scores
  • IP address performance
  • Authentication results
  • Spam complaint rates

These built-in tools help identify potential deliverability issues before they impact your campaigns. Many ESPs also include:

  • Automated alert systems for unusual bounce rates, authentication failures, blocklist appearances, and reputation changes.

The comprehensive monitoring capabilities of established ESPs eliminate the need for multiple third-party tools, making them an essential component of successful email marketing strategies.

Analyzing Campaign Performance

Regularly analyzing your campaign performance gives you valuable insights into how effective your email marketing is. By using data to guide your decisions, you can spot trends in:

  • Delivery Success Rate - Keep an eye on the percentage of emails that actually make it to recipients' inboxes for each campaign
  • Time-Based Metrics - Pay attention to delivery rates at specific times or on certain days so you can optimize when you send your emails
  • Geographic Performance - Look at how deliverability varies in different regions and countries
  • Template Performance - Compare bounce rates between different email templates and designs

Here's what you should focus on measuring when analyzing your campaigns:

  • Inbox placement rates for each campaign
  • How often emails end up in the spam folder
  • Whether authentication passes or fails
  • Delivery success rates for specific domains
  • Any changes in IP reputation

Pro Tip: Set up a performance dashboard to track these metrics side-by-side for different campaigns. This visual representation will help you identify trends and potential problems before they negatively affect your sender reputation.

By taking a systematic approach to analyzing your campaigns, you'll be able to quickly spot any problematic patterns or successful strategies. Use these insights to improve future campaigns and ensure that your deliverability rates remain strong.

Conclusion

Tracking email deliverability and bounce rates is crucial for successful email marketing campaigns. To maintain healthy email metrics, you should:

  • Regularly monitor bounce rates and deliverability metrics
  • Implement strong list hygiene practices
  • Strategically segment your email lists
  • Use reliable ESPs with built-in tracking tools
  • Set up authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

These practices will help you run successful email campaigns and protect your sender reputation. Remember, every bounced email means you missed an opportunity to connect with your audience.

Take action today:

  • Set up regular monitoring schedules
  • Clean your email lists monthly
  • Test your content before sending
  • Track your metrics consistently

Your email marketing success relies on these basic practices. Start using these strategies, and you'll see better deliverability rates, stronger engagement, and improved campaign results. The time you spend tracking and optimizing your email deliverability will greatly benefit your marketing outcomes.

✨ The Power of Email Deliverability ✨

Inbox Placement → Revenue

Your ability to get in your target audiences inbox directly relates to your revenue potential. It's a simple formula we have seen work across all of our clients and would like to share with you.