# Understanding Bounces and Unsubscribes

Understanding how your emails perform after sending is key to maintaining strong deliverability.Two important metrics to monitor are **bounces** and **unsubscribes**.

### **What is a Bounced Email?**

A bounced email occurs when a message cannot be delivered to the recipient’s inbox.

#### **Hard Bounce (Permanent Failure)**

A hard bounce means the email cannot be delivered permanently.Common reasons:

* Invalid or non-existent email address
* Domain does not exist
* Recipient server has blocked the email

👉 **What to do:**Remove these contacts immediately to protect your sender reputation.

#### **Soft Bounce (Temporary Issue)**

A soft bounce is a temporary delivery issue.Common reasons:

* Recipient’s inbox is full
* Email server is temporarily down
* Message is too large

Rechat will retry sending these emails for a period of time (typically up to 72 hours).If delivery continues to fail, the email may eventually be treated as a hard bounce.

#### **In Rechat**

* Multiple soft bounces may appear with a red badge (e.g. “Bounced7”)
* This indicates multiple delivery attempts

### **What is an Unsubscribe?**

An unsubscribe occurs when a recipient chooses to stop receiving your emails.This means:

* Your email was successfully delivered
* The recipient opted out of future communication

### **Why This Matters**

* **Bounces = delivery problem**
* **Unsubscribes = engagement choice**

Both impact your sender reputation in different ways.

### **Best Practices**

* Remove hard bounces immediately
* Monitor repeated soft bounces
* Respect all unsubscribe requests
* Regularly clean your contact list

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A healthy email list is not about size—it’s about engagement.Smaller, high-quality lists will always outperform large, unengaged ones.
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