Bounce Classification and Suppression
Separate permanent recipients, temporary provider failures and infrastructure errors.
Use responsibly. Apply these controls only to permission-based email programs and validate changes in a controlled environment.
Objective
Separate permanent recipients, temporary provider failures and infrastructure errors.
Define an owner, measurable success criteria and the systems included in scope.
Control design
Document identities, traffic streams, providers, credentials, source IPs, DNS records, suppression behavior and data retention. Separate configuration facts from assumptions.
Implementation workflow
- Inventory the current state.
- Verify evidence from DNS, headers, MTA logs and provider dashboards.
- Introduce one controlled change.
- Use a small canary and explicit rollback trigger.
- Record results and ownership.
Monitoring
Track rates by provider, source IP, domain, tenant and message stream. Alert on changes in queue age, temporary failures, hard bounces, complaints and authentication.
Failure modes
- Aggregate metrics hiding a localized provider problem.
- Unowned DNS or credentials.
- Rate increases despite worsening signals.
- Suppression data not shared across systems.
- Changes without rollback evidence.
Operational checklist
- Owner and escalation path documented
- Identity and provider scope verified
- Baseline metrics captured
- Canary and rollback defined
- Post-change review completed