Why do some emails bounce?

You're using Dropcontact and seeing some bounces in your campaigns? Here's what's actually happening and how to minimize them.

Dropcontact delivers emails with a 0.9% hard bounce rate (verified in our 2025 Email Finder Benchmark across 20,000 contacts), but bounce rates can still vary depending on your sending practices. Let's break it down.

The two types of bounces

Hard bounce (invalid address): The email address doesn't exist. This happens when a contact has left the company, there's a typo, or the address was never valid. Remove these immediately from your list.

With Dropcontact, hard bounces are rare (under 1%) because we verify every email in real time. When you do see hard bounces, it's usually from:

• Contacts who left their company between enrichment and sending
• Catch-all domains where validation is technically impossible

Reject/refuse bounce (sender reputation): The mail server blocks your email as unsolicited. This is the most common cause of bounce and has nothing to do with email validity. It's about your domain reputation and sending setup.

Critical: Don't add third-party verification after Dropcontact

Dropcontact includes native email verification with advanced catch-all handling. Adding tools like Neverbounce, Zerobounce, or Bouncer after enrichment will actually hurt your results:

• They produce 14-39% false positives, flagging valid Dropcontact emails as risky
• They can't validate catch-all domains properly, so they mark them all as risky
• You'll lose valid contacts and reduce your overall coverage

Our benchmark data shows Dropcontact delivers the lowest error rate on the market. additional verification is redundant and counterproductive.

Understanding catch-all emails

About 30% of companies (especially large enterprises) use catch-all domains. These are configured so individual addresses can't be technically verified by any solution: the server accepts all emails without confirming if specific addresses exist.

Why catch-all matters:

• Higher bounce risk on these addresses (but still around 90% valid with Dropcontact)
• Less competition: most tools exclude them entirely
• Higher value prospects: often large companies with bigger budgets

We recommend including catch-all emails in your campaigns, just don't send too many at once.

👉 Everything you need to know about catch-all emails

Fix what actually causes bounces: your sending setup

Most bounce issues come from poor sending practices and domain configuration, not email quality.

Smart sending practices:

Mass email tools destroy your domain reputation. Instead:

• Send 100-150 emails max per day in small batches
• Use cold email tools that mimic human behavior
• Vary send times and add proper delays between emails

👉 Cold email best practices

Configure your custom domain:

When you share a sending domain with other users, you're sharing their reputation too. Always set up your own custom domain: it's your identity card and proves you're the legitimate sender.

Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC:

Large companies have strict security that will reject emails from improperly configured domains, even if the email address is 100% valid.

Think of domain authentication like a visa: without it, you're refused at the border, no matter how valid your passport is.

👉 Complete domain setup tutorial

Go further

For a complete anti-bounce strategy, check out our 7 anti-bounce rules.

Want to see how Dropcontact compares to other solutions? View our 2025 Email Finder Benchmark with real data from 20,000 tests.

Curious about what makes Dropcontact different? Learn more about how Dropcontact differs from other email finders.