Do hard bounces need to be removed from lists

Marketing Cloud Account Engagement automatically manages prospects that result in a hard bounce. When an email to a prospect hard bounces, the system flags that prospect as 'Undeliverable' and also checks the 'Do Not Email' field on their record. This automated process suppresses the prospect from all future list email sends. Therefore, manual removal of these prospects from lists is not a required action to prevent further sending attempts and maintain list hygiene, as the system's suppression mechanism handles it.

The "True" option is incorrect because it suggests a manual intervention is necessary. Account Engagement's design automates the suppression of hard-bounced email addresses to protect sender reputation and ensure deliverability compliance, making manual list removal for this purpose redundant.

1. Salesforce Help, Account Engagement Documentation, "Prospect Field: Hard Bounced": This document explicitly states the system's automated behavior. It notes, "When an email hard bounces, Pardot marks the prospect as Undeliverable and selects the Do Not Email field. The prospect is suppressed from future email sends." This confirms that the system handles the suppression automatically, negating the need for manual removal.

Source: Salesforce Help Portal, Account Engagement Documentation.

2. Salesforce Help, Account Engagement Documentation, "Considerations for Using Pardot Email": Under the "Bounce Handling" section, this guide details the process. It clarifies, "Pardot automatically handles hard bounces and soft bounces for you... A hard bounce is a permanent delivery failure... Pardot marks the prospect as a hard bounce and suppresses them from future emails." This reinforces that the process is automated by the platform.

Source: Salesforce Help Portal, Account Engagement Documentation.

3. Salesforce Help, Account Engagement Documentation, "Prospect Audits": The Prospect Audits documentation provides examples of system-generated changes. A common entry is, "'Do Not Email' was changed from 'false' to 'true' by 'System'. Reason: Prospect email hard bounced." This serves as direct evidence of the automated system action that makes manual list management for hard bounces unnecessary.

Source: Salesforce Help Portal, Account Engagement Documentation.