Definition

When your email hits a brick wall because the address doesn't exist, was typed wrong, or the domain vanished into the internet void. Unlike a soft bounce, this failure is permanent and your email is never coming back from buying cigarettes.

Example Usage

We had a 12% hard bounce rate on that campaign because someone uploaded a list from 2015 without cleaning it first.

Origin

Email marketing terminology from the early days of digital communications

Fun Fact

A hard bounce rate above 2% can get your domain flagged as a spammer, tanking deliverability across all your campaigns.

Source: Email marketing and deliverability best practices

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See “hard bounce” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

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