Bounce and Unsubscribe Handling

Every email sent to an invalid address (a bounce) or to a user who opted out (an unsubscribe) sends a negative signal to mailbox providers. At scale, manual list cleaning is impossible and guarantees your domains land in spam. Proper handling isn't about list hygiene; it's about core sending infrastructure.

For teams sending 10k-1M+ emails per month, trying to manage bounces and unsubscribes with spreadsheets and manual CRM updates is an operational nightmare that directly harms deliverability.

1. Domain Reputation Damage: Mailbox providers like Google and Microsoft track your bounce rate. Consistently sending to invalid addresses signals you have poor list quality, causing your emails to be routed to spam. Ignoring unsubscribes leads to spam complaints, which is even more damaging.
2. Operational Chaos: SDRs and RevOps teams waste hours exporting bounce lists, cross-referencing unsubscribes, and manually updating CRMs. This process is error-prone, inconsistent, and doesn't scale across dozens or hundreds of inboxes.
3. Compliance Risk: Failing to honor unsubscribe requests isn't just bad practice; it can violate regulations like CAN-SPAM. A single mistake can put your entire outbound operation at risk.

A properly architected outbound system treats bounce and unsubscribe handling as a core infrastructure function, not a manual task. For a Deliverability Lead or RevOps Manager, the ideal state is fully automated:

1. Automated Bounce Processing: The system automatically detects hard bounces and adds the invalid email to a global suppression list, preventing any inbox from contacting them again.
2. Instant Unsubscribe Handling: A contact clicks the unsubscribe link, and they are immediately and permanently added to the suppression list across all campaigns and workspaces. No manual intervention required.
3. Centralized Suppression List: A single source of truth for all opted-out and invalid contacts. This ensures compliance and protects domain reputation, regardless of which rep or campaign is running.
4. Clean and Predictable Deliverability: With bounces and unsubscribes handled at the infrastructure level, your sender reputation remains strong, leading to predictable inbox placement and reply rates.

Setting up a robust system requires thinking about infrastructure, not just workflows. Here are the high-level steps:

1. Establish a Global Suppression List: This is your foundational asset. It must be a centralized database that all your sending infrastructure queries before sending an email.
2. Automate Bounce Detection: Configure your sending layer to parse SMTP replies. Hard bounces (e.g., 550 User unknown) should trigger an immediate add to the suppression list.
3. Centralize Unsubscribe Links: Ensure every email contains an unsubscribe link that writes directly to your global suppression list. Avoid per-campaign or per-inbox unsubscribe lists, which create data silos and compliance gaps.
4. Set Up Feedback Loops (FBLs): Register your sending domains with major mailbox providers (like Gmail and Outlook) to receive automated reports on spam complaints. These should also feed into your suppression list.

Managing this infrastructure manually is complex and requires significant engineering resources. An enterprise-grade outbound platform provides this functionality out of the box.

Look for a platform that offers:

1. Unified Suppression Management: A single, global list that automatically handles bounces, unsubscribes, and spam complaints for all connected inboxes.
2. Automated Bounce Parsing: The ability to differentiate between hard and soft bounces and take appropriate action without manual review.
3. Centralized Compliance: One-click unsubscribe functionality that is enforced across your entire organization.

SuperSend is designed as this execution and infrastructure layer for outbound teams sending at volume. It manages bounce and unsubscribe handling automatically so your team can focus on strategy, not manual list cleaning. The next step isn't just adopting a tool, but understanding the core strategies for building resilient deliverability infrastructure.