Best Practice: NoReply Email Sending Addresses

Sending from a “noreply@” email address comes across as uncaring to subscribers and may even be bad news for delivery rates in the long-term. The implication here is: “I’m not interested in hearing from you by email, regardless of whether email is better or easier for you. I just don’t respect you enough to take the risk that a dozen people might reply and insult me.”

Open For Business!

Second to showing respect, providing an email address that’s linked to a real, live inbox also shows that you’re open for business. Sure, putting an email address out there may attract its fair share of auto-replies and crud, but chances are that there will also be useful, relevant messages, like:

“I really enjoyed your latest email news. Can you provide us with a quote for a similar template?”
“What are your opening hours? I’d love to drop by sometime.”
“I’m changing my email address, but still want to get your updates. Can you help me out?”

This is the sort of behavior that email senders should really encourage, especially if they don’t have a fancy call center or real-world presence. It’s not just being nice – replies are a valuable source of feedback and a chance to connect. Or to put this another way: “EVERY email you send should be considered an opportunity to increase engagement with your users. Tell them that they can respond with questions, comments, whatever.”

Keep ‘em engaged

ReturnPath makes a claim in their capacity as deliverability experts, they use no uncertain terms in linking engagement (opens, clicks and replies) with inbox delivery rates:
“Engagement has always been an important measure of subscriber interest for senders, but ISPs are starting to make significant investments in research, in-house spam filters and third-party software to help measure subscriber engagement to better determine appropriate folder placement… Inactive subscribers will ultimately hurt your ability to get delivered.”
So not only is sending from a no-reply address an effective way to hurt feelings, but it can also take a chunk out of your delivery rates, too.

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