| AWeber | |
|---|---|
| Their stated threshold | AWeber's guidance treats bounce rates above a few percent as a list quality problem and their deliverability team contacts accounts that sustain them. |
| What happens if you cross it | AWeber reviews accounts and asks about list source. They have run since the 1990s and their compliance approach is conversational rather than automated, which means a warning before a suspension in most cases. |
| Where the bounce data lives | Reports, then the broadcast, then the bounce detail. Subscribers filtered to undeliverable status shows who was removed and when. |
| How bounces are classified | AWeber marks a subscriber undeliverable on a hard bounce, and tracks consecutive soft bounces against a threshold before doing the same, so persistent soft failures do not accumulate forever. |
Bringing the rate down
Each step is an action inside AWeber, in the order worth taking them.
Look at undeliverable subscribers by signup date
AWeber records when each subscriber joined. Bounces concentrated in one date range point straight at the import or the campaign that brought them in.
Check which signup form they came through
AWeber tracks the form per subscriber. A form on a page with heavy bot traffic shows up here clearly.
Use confirmed opt-in on public forms
AWeber has supported this for decades and it removes the fake-address problem before it reaches the list.
Segment by last open before your next broadcast
Sending to subscribers who opened in the last six months gives a clean send while you deal with the rest.
Verify before importing an inherited list
Newsletters that changed platform carry very old addresses. That decay shows up as bounces on the first broadcast after a migration.
The mistake people make here
A bounce report mixes two causes that need opposite responses: addresses that do not exist, and receivers refusing mail they could have delivered. The first is fixed by checking the list. The second is a sending problem and no amount of cleaning will move it.
Questions people ask
How does AWeber handle soft bounces?
It counts consecutive soft failures per subscriber and marks them undeliverable once the count crosses a threshold. A single soft bounce does nothing, which is correct.
Can I reactivate an undeliverable subscriber?
Only by having them subscribe again. AWeber does not let an import overwrite an undeliverable status, and that protection is doing its job.
Does AWeber charge for undeliverable subscribers?
Billing counts your subscriber total, so removing dead subscribers keeps you on a lower tier.