A marketing associate at Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) notices the number of hard bounces increased after the most recent send. Recently, NTO: •…

The increase in hard bounces experienced by Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) after incorporating a

new list of contacts from an industry event is most likely due to some of the newly added contacts

having invalid email addresses. Hard bounces typically occur when an email address is incorrect,

nonexistent, or has been deactivated. When a list is newly integrated into a sendable data extension

without thorough validation or cleaning, there's a higher likelihood that it contains email addresses

that are no longer valid, leading to an increase in hard bounces.

It's essential for marketing teams to perform email address validation and list cleaning, especially

when incorporating new lists from external sources like industry events, to maintain email

deliverability and sender reputation.

Reference: Best practices in email marketing stress the importance of maintaining list hygiene by

regularly validating and cleaning email lists to minimize hard bounces and ensure effective

communication with the audience.