Why did my outreach email bounce?

A bounce means the receiving mail server rejected your message. Some bounces are unavoidable when sourcing — people change jobs and addresses go dead — but a high rate will damage your sender reputation and push later emails into spam.

First, check the address type

Bounces cluster on personal addresses and on guessed work addresses. A verified work email bounces far less often than an unverified one. In the candidate's contact list, prefer addresses marked as verified.

Common causes

The mailbox no longer exists. The person has left the company. Nothing to fix — this is the single most common cause when sourcing.

The domain rejects unknown senders. Some corporate domains reject any first-time external sender. Try a different address for that person.

Your sending volume ramped too fast. A new mailbox sending hundreds of emails on day one looks like spam to receiving servers. Build volume gradually over the first few weeks.

Your domain is missing authentication. Without SPF, DKIM and DMARC on the sending domain, a growing share of mail is rejected outright. This is set up with whoever manages your DNS, not in NEOFind.

Keeping the rate down

1. Prefer verified work addresses over personal ones.
2. Keep daily volume modest, especially on a new mailbox.
3. Don't re-send to an address that has already hard-bounced.
4. Make sure SPF, DKIM and DMARC are configured on your sending domain.

Note A bounce is not the same as a send error. A bounce means we sent it and the recipient's server rejected it. An error means we could not send at all — usually a disconnected mailbox, which you can fix under Integrations.

Related

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Still need help? Email support@neofind.ai with the sequence name and roughly when the bounces started, and we'll look at the logs.