A bounce is a delivery failure report, not a human reply. It can reflect an invalid address, a temporary problem or a receiving-system rejection.

The decision to make

Classify the report using its actual delivery information. Do not treat every failure as an unsubscribe or assume every accepted message reached an inbox.

Practical checklist

  • Record the affected recipient correctly.
  • Suppress permanent failures as appropriate.
  • Distinguish SMTP acceptance from confirmed delivery.

An illustrative example

A mailer-daemon message quoting the original email can contain an opt-out sentence. That quoted text is not a new request from a prospect.

Your next step

Review classification rules and avoid retrying ambiguous sends until the outcome is understood.

AI-assisted planning guide published by Prime Pixels. Examples are illustrative, not customer case studies. Project scope and applicable requirements must be checked for your circumstances.