Why hard and soft bounces need different handling and how to act on each Most people think a “soft bounce” is just a temporary hiccup you can ignore. In reality the bounce category tells you exactly how to treat each address. ## Bounce types Hard bounces are permanent failures the server says the address doesn’t exist or is blocked. Soft bounces are temporary: mailbox full, greylisting, or a 4xx SMTP code. *Example*: We mailed 10 000 contacts to a brand‑new list. 300 addresses returned a hard bounce, 1 200 came back soft. The hard ones were removed immediately; the soft ones stayed for three campaigns before we purged them. ## What to do - **Hard**: delete or suppress after the first hit. When a hard bounce occured we simply delete the address; the error **recieve** is never something we chase. No point in retrying it hurts reputation. - **Soft**: track count. If the same address soft‑bounces three times in a row, move it to a “re‑engage” bucket or suppress for a month.…