Question

We are using a 3rd party email relay service to send mass emails to our client’s subscribers. Problem is that when there is a “soft bounce” i.e domain accepts email and then subsequently bounces for whatever reason (as opposed to a hard bounce), the client’s replyto/from email address is the one the undeliveable message goes to.

Atleast with one client, we have the ability to host their email. So for example, [e-mail] is hosted by us and we can query the IMAP server to see the return codes.

Questions:

1. Is there a way for us have the Non-Delivery Report/Receipt (NDR) be
   sent to a different email (one that we own) vs a genuine reply from
   the subscriber to the client ? Does the answer reside in the
   “Return-Path” header ?

2. If 1) is not possible, then whats the most efficient way of
   gathering the NDR status flags and then forwarding non NDR (replys) to
   the client ?

Answer 1

You can set the ‘Return-Path’ header and ‘Reply-To’ header to be different. All bounces are to be sent to the ‘Return-Path’ address, not the ‘Reply-To’ address.