High AWeber Bounce Rate?

67 replies
I've been with AWeber for several years, and my bounces and complaints have always been virtually nil.

All of a sudden, over the past week or so, my bounce rate has increased consistently and drastically. Is anyone else experiencing this?

John
#aweber #bounce #high #rate
  • Profile picture of the author usearchme2
    I havent noticed a change, when you say bounce rate what kind of a percentage are u talking about ?

    Woc
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  • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
    Originally Posted by John Rogers View Post

    I've been with AWeber for several years, and my bounces and complaints have always been virtually nil.

    All of a sudden, over the past week or so, my bounce rate has increased consistently and drastically. Is anyone else experiencing this?

    John
    Yes, it's happened to me too. I am not sure why.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
      Not only has our bounce rate increased - But, our delivery has gone in the toilet. We are having trouble even getting the "confirmation" emails to people that have requested them.

      Needless to say, this has irritated us more than a little bit.
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      • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
        I have been wondering whether somehow Aweber has got blacklisted somewhere. Or more likely, they've made some modifications to their system.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Rogers
    I was a bit concerned when my bounce rate jumped to nearly 3% last week.

    Today it jumped to 8%.

    Not good.
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    • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
      It used be practically close to zero %. Now my broadcasts average a bounce rate of around 6.5%.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Douglas
    My bounce rate with Aweber is usually 0.1% but the last two emails have been ~1.4%. Still not bad, but much higher than usual.
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  • Profile picture of the author JamesPenn
    I sent broadcasts to over 10k subscribers today across a few different niches.

    My marketing lists had a 2.4% bounce rate and my health lists a 4.4% bounce rate.

    What's going on?
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    • Profile picture of the author krull
      Weird. I went from 1-2 bounces to 41 bounces suddenly on my last broadcast about 3 days ago. Thought it was just me!
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
        There are a lot of possibilities. You'd need more information than is included here to make any sensible theories.

        Were they specific to one or a handful of domains? If so, which one(s)?


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  • Profile picture of the author digigo
    let me guess... a rogue email marketer ruined it for everyone else.. one bad apple ruins the whole basket.. maybe .. just speculation.. aweber competitor did this to them?... you know email marketing industry competition is fierce..

    time to consider a new email service provider (ESP) ??...
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    • Profile picture of the author mlevenhagen
      Yep.. this last week 3% roughly across a couple lists. Haven't sent out today though.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Digigo,

      Where do you come up with this stuff?

      This could be something that affects other providers as well, if it's a large receiver that's changed or broken something in their filtering system. It could be Aweber-specific and temporary. It could be something I haven't considered.

      It could also be limited to a few people with something in their content or formatting triggering it. There's simply not enough information yet to be sure there IS a problem, much less what causes it.


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      • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
        Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

        There's simply not enough information yet to be sure there IS a problem, much less what causes it.
        Paul
        There IS a problem, at least in my own situation at Aweber. I have never had more than .1% bounces. Suddenly the ongoing bounce rate averages around 6%. When I checked, the bounces were from different email providers.

        What's bad about it is how Aweber handles bounces. Here's the quote from their knowledgebase:

        What Does AWeber Do With Undeliverable Subscribers?
        When a subscriber is undeliverable, their entry is flagged in your account.
        We will continue to send your messages to a subscriber until they are undeliverable 3 times in a 60-day period. Once they are undeliverable 3 times in 60 days (and those 3 times are separated by at least a week), that person will be unsubscribed from your list.


        The problem started about a couple of weeks ago for me. So, today, I had 6% of my mailing list automatically unsubscribed by Aweber. My list is not that big, but to have 700 subscribers suddenly disappearing, it does hurt a little. Now that the 6% has been chopped off, I hope that my bounce rate will get back to the old rate of less than .1%. Otherwise I'll have no mailing list left! I shall know by tomorrow.
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        • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
          When I checked, the bounces were from different email providers.
          The question is, what do the bounces have in common?

          I just looked, and my last mailing had a bounce rate just over 50 times my average for the previous 5. Whatever the issue is, it's affecting me, too. I'm not dismissing it. I'm also still not sure it's not something unique to a few people. No way to know for sure.

          We can rule one thing out, though... It's not HTML-related. I don't send HTML mail.


          Paul
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          • Profile picture of the author ScottRaven
            Hi Warriors,

            I was searching for a recent trend with Aweber on here to see if anyone else has seen what I'm seeing and I found this thread. Maybe it is the same issue...

            If you go into your subscriber reports to delete all your unsubscribes, you will probably see a huge trend of subscribers signing up with something related to VIAGRA in the name field. I'm getting around 10 to 20 a day, and sometimes more.

            I have even had a few with various corporation names that you KNOW were not signing up to my list.

            I'm certain this is related to the bounce issue because if the names are showing this, then the emails being used are either bogus or are ones that are not requesting the actual info or sign up and will not be verified.

            Check it out in your Aweber accounts and let me know if I'm the only one seeing this, but I'd venture a guess that it's happening to a lot of marketers.

            Scott
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          • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
            Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

            The question is, what do the bounces have in common?

            I just looked, and my last mailing had a bounce rate just over 50 times my average for the previous 5. Whatever the issue is, it's affecting me, too. I'm not dismissing it. I'm also still not sure it's not something unique to a few people. No way to know for sure.

            We can rule one thing out, though... It's not HTML-related. I don't send HTML mail.


            Paul
            Paul:

            Hope this helps.

            For the first time ever, I didn't get talkbiz from you. You shouldn't be bouncing, because I whitelisted you years ago.

            I'm on hotmail, and msn could also be affected.

            Check your email addresses that bounced, and see what similarities they have.

            Edit: It's not in my junkmail box either, it just didn't get here.
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  • Profile picture of the author digigo
    it is just my speculation.. from what the OP said.. "increased consistently and drastically" while everything else remains the same...

    I agree we do not know for sure it is a network wide problem at this point... but then the old news

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...mpromised.html

    does not sound too comforting.. as we get more information. we will know it could be receiver side problem as you suggested..
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Digigo,

      I am not questioning John's data, or anyone else's. I'm simply not forming any conclusions on whether it's a systemic problem or something isolated to a few people.

      Without having some basis on which to form an opinion on IF there's a general problem, it would be foolish to pronounce on a cause. Speculate on what might happen? Sure, but you have to remember it's nothing but that - speculation on possibilities.

      There are a LOT of things that can, and do, mess with various providers from time to time. I'm not aware of any that are exempt from occasional problems.


      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author bsmith2
    I noticed about a 1-2.5 % bounce rate also. Has anyone contacted aweber?
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  • Profile picture of the author Fabian Tan
    Yeah I'm having this issue as well.

    I have studied the trend in the last few months. Before December, it seems like bounce numbers and percentages were being reported. Then for most of December and January, there were no percentages being reported and bounces seemed (incredibly) low.

    It could be that only in the last week or so that bounces are now being recorded in the system. So it could be just clearing the backlog.

    The key thing is emails will only be deleted "once they are undeliverable 3 times in 60 days (and those 3 times are separated by at least a week)".

    Let's see how things pan out.

    Fabian
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    I blame Paul Myers. Until someone proves me wrong, Paul Myers did it and he's not even sorry he did it. I'm also working on an alternate theory that involves Fig Newtonsâ„¢, spray cheese, and the hole in the ozone layer. I'll have more on this later.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Scott,

      It's not the spams causing it. The bounces I'm seeing were from a broadcast to confirmed subscribers.

      Well, it could be spam indirectly, at least in theory. If enough lists start sending confirmations to From addresses that either don't exist or hit the "This is Spam" button, that could spike the complaint rate and get blocks in at less savvy providers/blacklists.

      Byron,

      I'm pretty sure we'll hear from Tom soon.

      John,
      I blame Paul Myers.
      That's okay. I'm used to it.


      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
        Aside to John: Spray cheese does not use chlorofluorocarbons.

        Get another theory.
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        • Profile picture of the author homebizoutlook
          I'm seeing similar results. I'm thinking it's just one step closer to the death of email marketing. Does anyone else feel the same way, or is there still a future with email marketing?
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          • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
            Originally Posted by homebizoutlook View Post

            I'm seeing similar results. I'm thinking it's just one step closer to the death of email marketing. Does anyone else feel the same way, or is there still a future with email marketing?
            Aweber and email marketing are two separate things altogether.

            You can be a successful email marketer and not use Aweber ( I don't )

            You can use aweber and not be an email marketer ( I use my autoresponder to stay in contact with some of the sports teams I coach)

            Email marketing is no where near dead or even sick for that matter .
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          • Profile picture of the author Sipboy3000
            I'm glad I found this thread because I am having the same issue.

            I hardly ever have bounces and today I got like 200 bounces on a list of a little over 1000. (That's 20% bounces! Ouch!)

            I thought I was doing something wrong.

            I am very uneasy about this, but I was thinking maybe it has something to do with the inclement weather.

            I know that their support staff is snowed in right now, so I would expect them to be taking care of their families at this point.

            I really like Aweber, but this is a bit uncomfortable because my delivery rates went to the toilet almost overnight.

            Right as I am gearing up to do a major marketing push for an internal launch to my list.

            SUCKS!

            But I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how this pans out.
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            • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
              Originally Posted by Sipboy3000 View Post

              I'm glad I found this thread because I am having the same issue.

              I hardly ever have bounces and today I got like 200 bounces on a list of a little over 1000. (That's 20% bounces! Ouch!)

              I thought I was doing something wrong.

              I am very uneasy about this, but I was thinking maybe it has something to do with the inclement weather.

              I know that their support staff is snowed in right now, so I would expect them to be taking care of their families at this point.

              I really like Aweber, but this is a bit uncomfortable because my delivery rates went to the toilet almost overnight.

              Right as I am gearing up to do a major marketing push for an internal launch to my list.

              SUCKS!

              But I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and wait to see how this pans out.
              Although there is no proof for this scenario, with the timing and the terrible weather ... it sounds plausible .
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              • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
                Given a choice between the weather and an unusual spike in deferrred mail at Yahoo, I'd wager on the second. I know that's been happening to a lot of people lately.

                Hmmm... Maybe. But the numbers don't seem high enough to be explained by that.


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              • Profile picture of the author Sipboy3000
                Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips View Post

                Although there is no proof for this scenario, with the timing and the terrible weather ... it sounds plausible .
                That is the only thing I could think of because it happened so suddenly.

                Maybe the weather caused outages with other service providers as well as Aweber's system because I know on their blog it states that their support staff is snowed in.

                The fact that they are not able to manage the system effectively right now may be the issue.

                Here is the blog post I read earlier today:

                Support Offices Closed Wed-Thur Feb 10-11, 2010
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                • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
                  Sipboy,

                  Hmmm. If they treated "No route to host" as a bounce, yeah. That's possible. Unlikely, but possible.


                  Paul
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                  • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
                    Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

                    Sipboy,

                    Hmmm. If they treated "No route to host" as a bounce, yeah. That's possible. Unlikely, but possible.


                    Paul
                    Paul,

                    I would say you understand this a lot better than me . You think :-)

                    It still amazes me that I can click send and my email appears on the other side of the world in seconds
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                  • Profile picture of the author Sipboy3000
                    Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

                    Sipboy,

                    Hmmm. If they treated "No route to host" as a bounce, yeah. That's possible. Unlikely, but possible.


                    Paul
                    That is the thought process I was having Paul.

                    I don't know specifically what it is called in technical terms, but for some reason I think this may be the case.

                    I really want to believe in Aweber at this point because they have been great to me.

                    So to have this happen all of a sudden, just seems that there has to be a sensible reason that maybe was beyond their control.

                    How else can you explain this:



                    All of this is recent if you look at the dates.

                    Before the last few days, I never saw anything like this before.
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                  • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
                    Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

                    Sipboy,

                    Hmmm. If they treated "No route to host" as a bounce, yeah. That's possible. Unlikely, but possible.

                    Paul
                    Actually, I think Paul is right. On my list, I have roughly the same number of bounces each time I broadcast. I think there's been a network failure in a particular part of the US that's caused "no route to host", resulting in email delivery failure (mail bounces). The fact that my bounces were across different email domains also tends to confirm that perhaps the common denominator is geographic. Just today, I had an email from an host provider that he could not get my ordered server setup due to mail maintenance and that he's also stuck in snow.
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                • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
                  Originally Posted by Sipboy3000 View Post

                  That is the only thing I could think of because it happened so suddenly.

                  Maybe the weather caused outages with other service providers as well as Aweber's system because I know on their blog it states that their support staff is snowed in.

                  The fact that they are not able to manage the system effectively right now may be the issue.

                  Here is the blog post I read earlier today:

                  Support Offices Closed Wed-Thur Feb 10-11, 2010
                  What part of GA you located in
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                  • Profile picture of the author Sipboy3000
                    Originally Posted by Troy_Phillips View Post

                    What part of GA you located in
                    Douglasville

                    West GA almost at the Alabama state line. (about 30 miles actually)

                    What about you?
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                    • Profile picture of the author Troy_Phillips
                      Originally Posted by Sipboy3000 View Post

                      Douglasville

                      West GA almost at the Alabama state line. (about 30 miles actually)

                      What about you?
                      Been to Douglasville before

                      I live in Young Harris Ga ( home of Zell Miller)

                      About as far north as you can go and not be in Tn or NC
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  • Profile picture of the author ScottRaven
    Hi Paul,

    Thanks...that's good to know.

    I was just curious about the possible timing of this happening, as it's never happened before until recently and when it started happening the number of bounces of mine started going up too (into the triple digits).

    Hope to hear from Tom soon and the problem is resolved or understood.

    Oh yeah...and I like spray cheese, so I hope that isn't the culprit.

    Thanks again,

    Scott
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    UPDATE: I've replaced cheese spray with Aquanetâ„¢ hairspray circa 1975 in my earlier alternate theory, creating an alternate alternate theory. Now it all makes perfect sense. Paul Myers is not to blame, although one simulation did show a 2nd cousin, once removed, as a distinctly possible choice as the root cause here. So while he is now officially off the hook, his family line is still implicated. Maybe. In theory.
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  • Profile picture of the author ZerosToHero
    Maybe it's a good time for the CEO to come respond to this problem. He's done it before and hopefully he'll do it again.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vagabond 007
    I can't even get my emails sent out. I sent out a broadcast on the 9th. None of them got sent. I emailed their support, didn't get a response. So I tried to send the broadcast out again today. Same thing, none of them were sent.

    I am local to them, and we got hit with a blizzard on Wednesday. Which was on top of another 2'+ feet of snow we got on Friday. Our major highways were closed Wednesday. So I'm guessing they are a bit backed up since they didn't even go in on Wednesday.

    Power was/is out in some parts of the area. So I wouldn't be surprised if the snow caused some sort of damage.

    I've met Tom, the CEO, before. Very nice guy. I'm sure he'll get everything taken care of.
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    • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
      Originally Posted by Vagabond 007 View Post

      I've met Tom, the CEO, before. Very nice guy. I'm sure he'll get everything taken care of.
      I hope he and his system can reinstate my 700 or so subscribers who were automatically unsubscribed due to the bounces. Here's hoping.
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  • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
    This is my advice:

    Do not broadcast until things get back to normal!

    It cost me 700 subscribers (6% of my mailing list) before I realized my mistake. Remember, Aweber will automatically unsubscribe your subscribers if the messages to them are undeliverable 3 times within a 60-day period.
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  • Profile picture of the author dsmpublishing
    Hi guys

    normally when i send out a mail to 10,000 i only get about 3-4 bounces but when i sent it out to 8,000 in the food niche last night it was 12 so there must be a glitch in the system.

    kind regards

    sam
    X
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    • Profile picture of the author Leto
      Wow, looks like i left AW just in time ....
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Tracey
    OK Let me throw the proverbial spanner:-

    My bounce rate declined substantially on my last broadcast, was way below my average

    Michael
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      I should point out that I think outages causing this is what's unlikely, not that Aweber would call "No route to host" a bounce. That should be treated as one.

      I don't think it's Hotmail, because the numbers would be higher. More precisely, I don't think it's across their whole platform. It's possible there's something that affects part of their system, as they're... somewhat disorganized.

      If it is a localized problem, say a datacenter out or a bit of fiber cut, it would have to be a big place.

      The geographic issue is one thing that would explain that much bouncing from a wide range of domains that didn't include any of the big 4 (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL). Another is a listing in a smaller spam filtering system.

      Again, there are probably other things I'm not thinking of at the moment. This is an area with a lot of possible points of failure.

      Sam ... Going from 3 bounces to 12 doesn't tell much, as those could be work addresses for people who couldn't get to the office for a few days and have full mailboxes. Just as one example. There's a ton of ways for that small a hiccup to happen.


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      • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
        Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

        The geographic issue is one thing that would explain that much bouncing from a wide range of domains that didn't include any of the big 4 (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and AOL). Another is a listing in a smaller spam filtering system.
        A lot of my bounces do come from the big 4.

        And I must add, that the bounces are distributed across the whole US. I think the problem is at Aweber.
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        • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
          A lot of my bounces do come from the big 4.
          As a rule, they would. The question is, what part of the increase is from them? Seems a bit difficult to sort them by date.


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    • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
      Originally Posted by Michael Tracey View Post

      OK Let me throw the proverbial spanner:-

      My bounce rate declined substantially on my last broadcast, was way below my average

      Michael
      What time did you schedule your broadcast for?

      For everyone else:

      I'm beginning to this this may be a cyber attack done at certain intervals. To further investigate this, the following info is needed.

      1. What time did you send your 4 most recent broadcasts (preferrably in GMT if you can, so it's easier to spot a trend)?

      2. Bounce rates of each broadcast, and please highlight in red text the unusual ones.

      I suspect a trend will develop, which will give many clues as to what is actually going on.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Patrick,
      Any answers from aweber?
      Unlikely for today. They've had real issues with getting into the office, as the major roads and a lot of city streets have been closed because of the snow. They'll probably need today to start getting caught up and get things under control.


      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author zoobie
    I thought it was just me. I did clean out some undeliverables yesterday and found out some email address owners got names like viagra whatever. So I guess they were having a spam attack on their servers. But I think the issue was solved now.
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  • Profile picture of the author askloz
    I'm not with Aweber, but I will say that over 90% of those lists I join up to, all go into my Spam box for some reason.

    Getresponse on the other hand, i'm lucky to see 5-10% of those lists I join up to who use GR go in the spam area.

    Originally Posted by John Rogers View Post

    I've been with AWeber for several years, and my bounces and complaints have always been virtually nil.

    All of a sudden, over the past week or so, my bounce rate has increased consistently and drastically. Is anyone else experiencing this?

    John
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  • Profile picture of the author tkulzer
    As I encourage anyone who has a concern to do, please get in touch with us
    directly. Our team is here to help. Without specific data about an individual
    subscriber list it's impossible to troubleshoot what the specific problem might.

    Couple of facts I can state without hesitation:

    * we are not blocked by any major ISP.
    * email marketing isn't over.
    * has nothing to do with the east coast blizzard.
    * has nothing to do with the previous data compromise.
    * we are not removing soft bounces.

    If your seeing an elevated undeliverable rate that you feel is higher than normal
    please call us directly so one of our team can look directly at your account.
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    • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
      Boy, am I glad I labeled my guesses and speculation as guesses and speculation. Turns out there's one of those things I hadn't even considered.

      I have been informed that one possible factor is some adjustments they made to their bounce handling. Specifically, to catch things that are in reality now hard bounces, but weren't being treated as such.

      How much of an effect that has on individual lists won't be possible to tell for a few mailings. And that is probably not the issue (or all of it) with every list that's seeing the increase. Like Tom said, and as demonstrated by Michael Tracey's very different figures, every list is different and has to be looked at individually.

      In cases where it is a factor, you should consider this a Very Good Thing. Those subscribers were not getting your mailings anyway. If they bounce off, you can remove them and have lower numbers of billable leads in the account, and a more accurate grasp of the effectiveness of your mailings.

      For those of you (most reading this) who aren't familiar with the process, this is a constant point of attention in the business. Bounce messages change, new providers use the wrong codes, etc. Keeping up with it is one of the reasons I use Aweber for new subscribers, rather than my own server.

      I used to manage my own list software, and had to tweak the bounce handling all the time. Hotmail finally cured me of that when they started using cryptic and non-standard bounce messages some times, and dropping mail on the floor without response other times. I got tired of constantly adjusting the system to prune bad addresses properly. Even with Vince Sabio's ListBounce plugged in, it wasn't ever completely accurate. And Vince knows (knew?) a lot more about that stuff than I ever want to...


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      • Profile picture of the author Khai Lay
        Originally Posted by Paul Myers View Post

        I have been informed that one possible factor is some adjustments they made to their bounce handling. Specifically, to catch things that are in reality now hard bounces, but weren't being treated as such.
        If that's the case, Aweber should have announced the adjustments before they made them. I did suspect they might have made some tweaks to their system but could not find any news from them about it. If they had announced it beforehand, there might not have been any alarm or speculation. If they could announce that they couldn't get to work because of the blizzard, surely they could have announced the adjustments too.
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        • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
          U,U &A,
          If that's the case, Aweber should have announced the adjustments before they made them.
          As I said, this particular thing is a constant point of attention. It will usually not affect many customers at all, and when it does, it's impossible to tell which ones or how much. I don't know about you, but I don't need to get emails every day saying, "Hey, this probably won't affect you at all, but we're doing [insert obscure ESP stuff here] tomorrow at 6:17 AM."

          Not being there to answer the phones is a much bigger thing. That warrants a blog entry.


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          • Profile picture of the author emaildeliverypro
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            • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
              One of the ways you can test reliability of aweber bounce management is by doing a simple test. i.e send a test email to subscribers listed as bounce from your personal email and see if it really bounces. For authenticity of test do it form many email accounts
              Ummm... That is a spectacularly bad idea.

              First, you're talking to people who are as likely as not going to end up mailing to their unsubscribes [instead of|along with] the bounces. If that happens, they're going to get very high bounce rates and spam complaints. You can pretty much consider the sending account dead.

              Let's assume, for the sake or argument, that they only send to the ones that bounced off the list. You're looking at a mailing that will probably have a 98% or higher bounce rate. If there are many addresses on that list at all, the IP will end up getting blocked at all the major receiving systems, and likely end up on one or more blocklists.

              Oh... Then there's Hotmail. If you hit too high a bounce rate with them, they can start blackholing your mail in mid-send. That means that some of it will simply go *poof* It's not deliverable, but there's no bounce generated. And the poor clueless newb who took your advice is now convinced that those addresses are still valid, since "they didn't bounce."

              Best case scenario: If you had a very small list, you don't send enough bouces to get on anyone's radar. Medium to large list, and a lot of your legitimate email sent from that address gets blocked later.

              Probable situation: Your ISP or web host (or both) nukes your account for spamming.

              Worst case: You end up getting your ISP account nuked for spamming, you lose your web hosting (if you used that or an address at your domain in the message), you get fined by your domain registrar and possibly lose your domain.

              If you're using shared hosting and send it from that server, you get everyone else on the machine who doesn't have a separate IP address blocked while you're at it.

              But hey... Go ahead and take advice on email delivery from "emaildeliverypro." He claims to be an expert, so it must be true.

              And yeah, why not try it from many addresses while you're at it?


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              • Profile picture of the author emaildeliverypro
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                • Profile picture of the author Paul Myers
                  I am not saying to email all the bounced addresses. I wanted to say email a few seed addresses from your personal ID or some id that isnt associated directly with you. If your mail still bounces it means their is problem with email address and bounce was correct. If it doesnt then it means something is wrong with aweber. Simple as that.
                  Clueless. Completely clueless.

                  A few addresses wouldn't give you an accurate picture. That's basic statistics.

                  And, pray tell, why would Aweber want to remove addresses that weren't really hard bounces? They get paid based on the size of the list. They get penalized, like every sender, if they send mail to too many bad addresses. The incentive is all lined up for them to remove ONLY genuine hard bounces, unsubscribes, and people who hit the "This is spam" button.

                  You're making no sense at all. If you wanted to test something, it would be the active subscriber addresses, with an eye to the sorts of bounces you'd get from them.


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  • Profile picture of the author tkulzer
    We make adjustments to things daily, sometimes hourly. Not something that making
    an announcement about is appropriate to the vast majority of clients. As mentioned
    above, if you have concern about something you're seeing it's always better to contact
    us directly rather than guessing about possible causes. What Paul is seeing is likely
    different than what you are seeing.
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    Tom Kulzer
    CEO & Founder
    AWeber Communications, Inc.

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  • Profile picture of the author PCRoger
    Mine went to crap.

    I have been getting all kinds of VIA#GR*A signups, some of which are confirming.

    I contacted aWeber about how to manually delete these, but they have not gotten back to me (they answered what I did NOT ask, and told me to rename the list).

    I'm pretty sure I used to be able to scroll the list and delete who I wanted; can't now.

    Every since they got hacked I've had no confidence in any of the stats.

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  • Profile picture of the author jasondinner
    I just started a thread about this, but now that I came across this I would rather share my bounce rates and my thoughts on why it's happening here:

    Here is a screenshot of my bounce rates >>> 2010-03-05_1038 <<<<<

    Although I could be mistaken, I'm guessing that this increased bounce rate
    and decreased open rate issue has EVERYTHING to do with Aweber's recently
    being hacked of all of their data which caused a ton of spam to hit email addresses
    that were submitted to aweber forms.

    Anyone else think this is the case as well?

    - Jason
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    • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
      Originally Posted by jasondinner View Post

      I just started a thread about this, but now that I came across this I would rather share my bounce rates and my thoughts on why it's happening here:

      Here is a screenshot of my bounce rates >>> 2010-03-05_1038 <<<<<

      Although I could be mistaken, I'm guessing that this increased bounce rate
      and decreased open rate issue has EVERYTHING to do with Aweber's recently
      being hacked of all of their data which caused a ton of spam to hit email addresses
      that were submitted to aweber forms.

      Anyone else think this is the case as well?

      - Jason
      No, no, a thousand times no.

      Just because it went up after the hack attempt does not mean the hack attempt is the only reason.

      We need to narrow this down further, by eliminating all other possible causes for this.

      So you need to provide a ton more info than bounce rates. For example, you need a breakdown of the percentages of bounces by email provider.

      Times and dates of the broadcasts can also narrow stuff down as well.

      For all we know, the exponential bounce increase could be coming from a cyber attack on certain mail servers. Or a mail server could be experiencing an outage, or went offline for upgrades, or nutzero tweaked their spam filter the wrong way, or god knows what else.

      Don't just assume, start digging.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikemac1
    I don't know how I missed this thread because I am facing the same issue with a list and it's driving me crazy AND I don't use Aweber.

    My bounces have steady increased over the last few weeks too.
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    • Profile picture of the author BillyBee
      I see that this thread was started almost a month ago.

      Are people still having the same problem?
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      • Profile picture of the author emaildeliverypro
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        • Profile picture of the author emailer1
          Is anyone still having this problem at aweber? The last post was on march 5 2010. I am using one of the other 'bigger name' autoresponder services and starting on Feb 20, 2010 my bounce rate suddenly went through the roof and has stayed high since then. This seemed to literally happen overnight and it happened to campaigns that have been running for over a year without any problems like this. There were no changes to the campaign made prior to this happening. Any help or ideas on what is causing this and/or how to fix appreciated.
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