Engagement - How to Pull Bounce Reasons For Low Deliverability

Use one of the following two methods to extract bounce and block data from your Marketing Cloud account. Option 1 is the simplest — Option 2 provides more flexibility for targeted analysis of specific sends or time windows.

Option 1: Using a Tracking Extract (easiest)

1. Create a Tracking Extract using the Bounce output
2. Create a file transfer activity.
   1. You'll need a SFTP location to select where your file will be placed. See our Marketing Cloud Engagement SFTP Guide if you need more information on SFTP.
3. Add your data extract and file transfer to an automation, each in their own separate steps and run the automation.
   1. The automation won't complete successfully if you place all activities in the same step.
4. Analyze your bounce data by pulling the file from your Marketing Cloud Engagement FTP location.

Option 2: Querying bounces in your sends (hardest)

1. Create a new Data Extension.
2. Add the fields below

AccountID (Number)
OYBAccountID (Number)
JobID (Number)
ListID (Number)
SubscriberID (Number)
SubscriberKey (Text, 250 character max)
EventDate (Date)
Domain (Text, 128 character max)
BounceTypeID (Number)
BounceCategoryID (Number)
SMTPBounceReason (Text)
SMTPMessage (Text)
SMTPCode (Number)

3. Fields and names can be removed or modified to fit your specific needs and can be found in Data View: Bounce.
   1. You'll need to make sure that any fields removed from Data Extension you create are also removed from Query text below in step 4.
4. Create a query activity. You may use one of the suggested queries below, build upon them, or create your own. Run this query to find recent bounces and blocks in your sends. You can modify the days, but keep in mind that most ISPs have temporary blocks (approximately 3-5 days), so you want to avoid querying bounces and blocks that exceed a week as they are likely unblocked by the time you pull this information.

--Run this query to pull bounce messages within the past 5 days
Select
AccountID,
OYBAccountID,
JobID,
ListID,
SubscriberID,
SubscriberKey,
EventDate,
Domain,
BounceTypeID,
BounceCategoryID,
SMTPBounceReason,
SMTPMessage,
SMTPCode
From _bounce
where eventDate > dateadd(day,-5,getdate())

--Run this query to find bounces and blocks for a specific send/jobid.
Select
AccountID,
OYBAccountID,
JobID,
ListID,
SubscriberID,
SubscriberKey,
EventDate,
Domain,
BounceTypeID,
BounceCategoryID,
SMTPBounceReason,
SMTPMessage,
SMTPCode
From _bounce
where jobid = 'JOBID' --Replace JOBID with the numeric Job ID from the send
                      -- (found in Email Studio > Tracking > Send Summary)

Note: Changes to these queries may be unsupported by Marketing Cloud Support, depending on your Account Support Entitlement.

• Create a data extension extract activity.
• Create a file transfer activity.
  1. You'll need a SFTP location to select where your file will be placed. See our Marketing Cloud Engagement SFTP Guide if you need more information on SFTP.
• Add your query, extract, and file transfer to an automation, each in their own separate steps and run the automation.
  1. The automation won't complete successfully if you place all activities in the same step.
• Analyze your bounce data by pulling the file from your Marketing Cloud Engagement FTP location.