Dynamics Community Forum Thread Details

Soft Bounces - delivery expired

I've seen several questions on this issue. We've been having issues with soft bounces Message expired with yahoo (mostly). Some yahoo recipients are receiving the message and some are not (close to 50%) 28 fails and 26 deliveries. We have 2 email communications within the same journey (english and then french). In some cases the first one is delivered but not the second. Any suggestions on how to improve our delivery with yahoo? Do we know the retry rate as i understand this is defined within the customer insights/microsoft and not something we can edit.

Categories:

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Journeys

Hi CA-27061821-0,

Soft bounces with the message “delivery expired” are typically caused by temporary issues on the recipient’s mail server—Yahoo in particular is known for aggressive spam filtering and throttling, especially when receiving bulk emails.

Here are a few suggestions to improve delivery rates:

Authenticate Your Domain Properly

Ensure that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are correctly configured. Yahoo tends to reject or delay messages from domains with weak or missing authentication.

Monitor Sending Reputation

Use tools like Microsoft’s Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) or third-party services to monitor your IP/domain reputation. A poor reputation can lead to throttling or delayed delivery.

Segment Your Audience

Try splitting your Yahoo recipients into smaller batches and staggering the send times. This can reduce the likelihood of triggering Yahoo’s rate limits.

Avoid Spam Triggers

Review your email content for spam-like elements (e.g., excessive links, promotional language, or large images). Even subtle changes between English and French versions might affect deliverability.

Retry Logic

The retry behavior is managed internally by Microsoft’s infrastructure and isn’t configurable. Typically, retries occur over a 48-hour window before a message is marked as expired. Unfortunately, this logic isn’t exposed or adjustable.

Use Suppression Lists Wisely

If certain addresses consistently bounce, consider adding them to a suppression list to avoid repeated failures that could impact overall deliverability.

Improving Yahoo delivery often requires a combination of technical setup and strategic sending practices. If the issue persists, you might consider contacting Microsoft support to review your sending logs in more detail.

Thanks and best regards,

Daniele

Note: This response was prepared with support from Copilot to ensure clarity and completeness.

Quick Links