Decoding Bounce Messages — Read the Tracking Log Like a Pro

Read the bounce log from the campaign report#

AcelleMail tracks every send attempt — including bounces — in the campaign's Tracking log. Open any sent campaign → Bounces tab:

Each row shows:

• Recipient email — who didn't receive
• Bounce type — Hard (permanent — invalid address, domain doesn't exist) or Soft (temporary — mailbox full, server unreachable)
• DSN reason — the receiving server's response, in plain-ish English
• Time — when AcelleMail tried to deliver

What AcelleMail does automatically#

You don't need to manually clean up most bounces. AcelleMail's bounce handling runs automatically:

• Hard bounces are marked as unsubscribed after the first occurrence. They're removed from future sends to the same list. No action needed.
• Soft bounces are retried with backoff (next campaign batch). After 5 consecutive soft bounces, AcelleMail auto-promotes to hard bounce (treats as permanent).
• Spam complaints (recipient hit "This is spam") flow through SMTP-vendor webhooks (SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark) and immediately unsubscribe the subscriber.

The campaign overview shows the totals:

If Failed is <5% of the list, you're fine — that's the industry-typical churn from invalid + abandoned addresses on any list. If Failed is >10%, something needs attention (see "When to take action" below).

When to take action — UI-driven decisions#

The Subscribers view — clean up manually if needed#

If you want to manually mark certain addresses unsubscribed (e.g. an entire former-customer list), open Subscribers in a list, filter by status, and bulk-change:

• Filter by status Failed to see hard-bounced addresses.
• Bulk-select rows → top toolbar → Change status → Unsubscribed.
• The list count + future sends update immediately; no separate suppression step needed.

Common UI signals — quick recap#

• Failed count <5% of list → ignore, AcelleMail handles it
• Failed count >10% of list → run email verification before next send
• Bounces clustered on one domain → IP/DNS issue, check sending server
• "Authentication failed" bounces → fix SPF/DKIM/DMARC

550 5.1.1 <bob@example.com>: Recipient address rejected: User unknown in local recipient table

php artisan tinker --execute='
  \App\Model\BounceLog::where("campaign_id", <id>)
    ->where("dsn_status", "like", "5.7%")
    ->select("recipient", "dsn_status", "diagnostic_code")
    ->get()
    ->each(fn($r) => print("{$r->recipient}\t{$r->dsn_status}\t{$r->diagnostic_code}\n"));
'

php artisan tinker --execute='
  \App\Model\FeedbackLog::orderByDesc("created_at")
    ->limit(50)->get()
    ->each(fn($r) => print("{$r->recipient}\t{$r->feedback_type}\t{$r->created_at}\n"));
'

Related articles#

• Campaign stuck in Sending status
• Why are my emails going to spam folder
• Email list hygiene — clean your list for better deliverability
• Debugging common email delivery issues