The percentage of sent emails that could not be delivered to the recipient's mail server. Hard bounces (invalid addresses) permanently damage sender reputation; soft bounces (temporary server issues) are less severe but still require monitoring.
A hard bounce rate above 2% is a danger signal — most ESPs will throttle or suspend accounts at 5%. Every unverified email sent is a potential bounce that chips away at your domain's reputation. This is why email verification before sending is non-negotiable.
DealForge's dual verification (Hunter.io + ZeroBounce) eliminates invalid addresses before sending, keeping bounce rates under 0.5% and protecting sender reputation.
DealForge puts Bounce Rate to work automatically — from ICP definition to verified leads to personalized outreach.
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