Vuture automatically processes bounced (undelivered) emails on a scheduled basis. We record this against the contact in InterAction and add the contact to a bounce suppression list if they reach the appropriate threshold.

The following is the recommended process for processing bounces InterAction:

1. Scheduled automatic processing

We process bounces automatically every hour. We can change this if you wish. We can extract the email log files and incoming bounces which are delivered to your central bounceback mailbox if you need them. 

2. Bounce analysis

Once you have sent out your email and we receive bounce messages. We analyse these against our database and classify the bounce. You can read more about this here. 

3. Record bounce activity against contact in InterAction

If a contact hard bounces we will write an activity back to InterAction against the contact. 

• You will need to create a bounce activity type in InterAction. This activity type id should be entered by your administrator into "Admin.System.InterAction.InterAction Activity Type Email Bounce"
• Each time a bounce is processed an activity will be added against the contact with this activity type
• The activity will include the email campaign that was sent and a short description of the bounce problem. The full bounces header are available for download from Vuture.

4. Add bounces to the InterAction bounce suppression list

When a contact hard bounces two times in a row, we will suppress that contact. We will add the contact to the InterAction bounce suppression list typically called, Vuture bounced contacts. When this happens Vuture will write an activity against the contact in the following format:

Bounceback: Address = abc@gmail.com, Reason: Hard bounce - General Other or undefined protocol status

When a contact soft bounces five times in a row, we will suppress that contact. We will add the contact to the InterAction bounce suppression list and the activity against the contact will be in the following format:

Bounceback: Address = abc@gmail.com, Reason: Hard bounce converted after x consecutive soft bounces. Last soft bounce message: soft bounce - delivery time expired

Please note: Soft bounce activities will not be recorded in InterAction. Only Hard bounce activities will be recorded.

We do not recommend changing this threshold but you can ask your Account Manager to change any of the settings in the admin area to a lower value than what is currently set.

• "Admin.System.Bouncebacks.Number of Hard Bounces" = 2
• "Admin.System.Bouncebacks.Add To Bounce List After Consecutive Bounces" = True
• "Admin.System.InterAction.Folder Containing Bounces Contacts" = IA Folder Id for Bounce Suppression folder#
• "Admin.System.Bouncebacks.Convert Soft To Hard After" = 5

Please note that this will only apply to new sends from that point on. If you would like to process historic bounces please let us know.  We can run a Vuture task to process historic data. This is done by your Vuture Administrator by enabling "Admin.Services.SoftToHardBounceConverterTask" to run every 5 minutes. This is a one time task that should be set to run over a weekend and be disabled after that.

Note for Vuture Administrators

Older client instances may need to have their bounce database migrated for the consecutive bounce feature to be enabled. Check that "Admin.System.Version.Bounceback Reporting Version" is set to 2. If not then log a support ticket for the migration to be actioned first.

Once this migration has been actioned you may choose to reset all bounces so that they can benefit from the bounce rule. To do this using the IA Windows Client - drag the contacts out of the bounce folder, using the IA Web Client - select all and remove from the folder.

5. Regularly review and correct contacts on the bounce suppression list: 

You should regularly review the contacts who bounce. We make this really easy using our bounce cleaner you can read more about this here.

We recommend that your InterAction Administrator sets up an daily FDA (Folder Dependency Analyzer) job to look for contacts in this folder that have had their email address updated and remove them from the folder.