No reply addresses: Why you shouldn't use them

Category: Email Marketing

Although using non-reply email addresses as senders is bad practice, many companies continue to use noreply@. In the short term, they may be a solution, but in the long term, they should be avoided because they affect the reputation and deliverability of messages. That's why it's advisable to use an alternative that directs potential user responses to a more useful place and doesn't lose contact with subscribers.

 

What are they for in the short term

The main reasons why companies use unanswered addresses for their communications are:

• They do not send content that prompts a response, which is common in transactional messages if they are considered as plain notifications.
• They prefer to direct attention to specific accounts such as support@ or customers@ to avoid having a generic mailbox that is difficult to manage internally.
• They do not have the resources to deal with user responses and choose this option to save time.
• They do not want to have a mailbox full of ‘out of office’ automatic replies and other unwanted messages.
• They centralise contacts by other means, such as telephone or face-to-face, so email is not a priority for their commercial actions.

 

Why not to use “no reply” addresses

It's possible to see it as a quick way to implement an email marketing strategy because one-way communication is clearly less work. But not listening doesn't mean they're not trying to talk to you, it simply means you're not paying attention to what they might be saying.

The use of unattended email addresses can negatively influence the performance of your email marketing:

• They show your ‘dark side’. It's like saying to your subscriber ‘I want you to listen to me, but I don't want to listen to you’. Even if you think that the content of your email does not give the user a reason to want to write to you, there is always a reason. You must allow users to communicate with you to ask questions, make suggestions or report any type of incident.
• Increase the number of complaints. Some users, instead of clicking on the ‘Unsubscribe’ link in your newsletter, may prefer to reply to your email indicating this. If they see that they cannot contact you or do not realise that they have written to a noreply@ redirect and continue to receive your messages, it is likely that they will end up marking your message as spam.
• They make your email impersonal. Your newsletter users have subscribed to your newsletter because they want to have a relationship with you, a ‘face-to-face’ communication. Even if you send mass emails, using a real email address makes your communications closer to them. Nobody wants to communicate with robots.
• They do not allow your list to be kept up to date. When a subscriber changes their email address and wants to continue receiving your mailings, they will reply to your message to let you know their new details. In addition, many users use automated emails to communicate the change. If you don't receive messages, you won't know until you receive a permanent return. You lose the opportunity to keep your contact list up to date and to keep communicating with them.
• Reduce your conversions. Noreply@ addresses make your communications cold, impersonal and reduce to 0 the possibility that your subscribers can ask you for extra information, give you feedback or make a commercial proposal.
• They affect your deliverability. More and more ISPs and anti-spam filters take user interaction into account when deciding whether to classify a message as legitimate or not. They value data such as user opens, clicks and responses, as well as the content or reputation of the sender. Some automatically move emails sent from noreply@ addresses to the spam folder.

 

What are the alternatives to noreply@ addresses?

Using an unattended address is not a good practice. It is always better to use a real email address for your mailings to allow your subscribers to contact you. Choosing who should be the sender is an important strategic decision to offer a closer image to users and improve the results of your email marketing.

Another possibility is to use an alias, for example of the department that is doing the sending, warning them that they are not receiving replies and creating an auto-response to let them know where to go. In this way, if any absent-minded person responds to the message, they will not be left completely unattended.

It is also advisable to include in the messages:

• Forms to update the subscriber profile or unsubscribe, in addition to being legally required, it provides confidence in the sender.
• Ways of contact that are attended, such as telephone or social networks.
• Resources that solve the most common questions so that they do not feel the need to respond.

Finally, it is possible to use simple filtering rules in the email manager you use so that incoming messages do not represent an additional workload for you. For example: Gmail and Outlook allow you to delete or move incoming messages to specific folders based on different criteria. With just a few clicks, you can keep your inbox clear of automated messages and quickly sort out those that are a priority and need to be responded to.

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