Have you ever wondered what your bounce codes mean? If so, you’ll be happy to find out that Chris Wheeler, Director of Deliverability at Bronto, has been working on doing just that with the DMA/eec Deliverability Roundtable. They saw a need to collect and document these codes, so you can refer to their listing whenever in doubt. The bounce code directory is hosted by GetSatisfaction.
Why?
There is no uniform standard among ISPs which requires that bounces be stated a certain way. So, marketers need to learn more about bounce codes with the help of other marketers. Not only does defining bounce codes help email marketers, the forum serves as a way to learn about next steps when dealing with specific bounce codes.
Check out the forum now, look around, contribute, take away bounce code information. Let the information help you to understand bounce codes and how they affect your email marketing.
Why is this useful?
Why is 250 a great number to see? Because when you see the bounce code 250, it’s a success bounce, indicating that your message was successfully delivered to its recipient. A bounce code is the most common method to hear from an ISP regarding your message, so in turn the best way to understand what is going on with your messages is through bounce codes. The DMA/eec Delivery Roundtable has put together this list of standard bounce codes for the following ISPs:
- Hotmail/Live
- Comcast
- ATT/BellSouth/SBC
- Yahoo
- AOL
Who should use it?
Typically IT or development will have access to these codes as they’re collected at the email server level, UNLESS you have access to these codes within your email application (you can in Bronto!). However, most anyone that is tied to deliverability will be interested in viewing these codes.
Now, I’ll let Chris step in to explain how to use the bounce code directory and how you can help:
How do I use it?
Let’s say you send out a mailing today. After watching the initial delivery numbers, you see that Yahoo has taken a dip in delivery (meaning there’s a delta between the delivery numbers you’re seeing and what you usually expect). Either by using the ESP’s delivery tools or by having someone on your team provide the information, you discover there’s an accumulation of the following bounce strings queuing up on your outbound email server.
“451 Resources temporarily not available - Please try again later [#4.16.5]”
You then go to the new bounce site and search for this string. You should find the following match:
“What does bounce code 451 Resources temporarily not available - Please try again later [#4.16.5] from Yahoo mean?” linking here.
After you click on the link, you see that this is a bounce message Yahoo! will serve up if their servers are over capacity and are pushing back on mail to allow them to catch up. This is not a sender related bounce but rather a Yahoo! infrastructure one – all you can do is retry the message later and hope Yahoo! has some available cycles at that time (which you should be doing on most soft bounces anyway). See? It’s that easy. And in most cases there’s a link to the ISP’s postmaster page which will provide further information on what to do or context around why you’re receiving this bounce.
How can you help?
There is no uniform standard amongst ISPs mandating that certain bounces be stated a certain way. As such, you see a huge variety of bounce messages and what information an ISP will provide. Also, as ISPs deem necessary, bounce codes change over time making existing ones outdated and adding new ones. Please help the email community stay on top of the changes by contributing to the GetSatisfaction bounce project site when you see new bounce codes that aren’t listed or know one that’s already listed has changed. By making this an industry effort, we can ensure all of us are up with the latest news.
Thanks Chris! So there you have it, a central location with a growing list of bounce codes updated in real time. A big thanks goes out to the eec and industry experts who were involved with this project:
- Joshua Baer - Founder & CEO - OtherInbox/Chief Evangelist - Datran Media
- Dennis Dayman, VP, Privacy, Eloqua
- Michelle Eichner, VP, Pivotal Veracity and Co-Chair, Deliverability Roundtable
- Stephanie Miller - VP, Global Market Development - Return Path
- Jack Sinclair - Co-Founder, COO & CFO - Return Path and Co-Chair, Deliverability Roundtable
- Chris Wheeler - Director of Deliverability - Bronto Software
- and other members of the eec Deliverability Roundtable
So, to Chris and Roundtable members thank you on behalf of email marketers everywhere! This will serve as a great resource for years to come. For more information on the bounce code projects along with other eec projects visit their site.
Caroline Smith
Marketing Operations Associate
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Nice work guys. Very helpful. Chris is an all-time favorite of mine, btw… congrats on picking him up.