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I have started to put together a lot of my email deliverability findings over the last few months and will be posting them on this blog starting today. Here is one that is really important and we ourselves did it not to long ago. Infact it is probably the most common thing I find on a lot of email subscriptions I get.

Do not use “No reply” or “Do not reply” as the From: Return address on your outgoing emails. Anne Mitchell from ISIPP explains it in detail on her blog:

But there are some email addresses - used as “From:” addresses - that even if you create them on your system - even if they really do exist - you should just never use.

“NoReply” and “DontReply” are two such addresses.

This is because even if email would actually get delivered if someone did hit reply, most spam filters now recognize that “noreply@” and “dontreply@” usually don’t go anywhere. And so your email risks getting dinged and going to the junk folder.

Beyond that, if an email address on your list bounces, you’ll never know because it has no real address to which to bounce back - or it bounces to an address that you’re not really monitoring. And if you keep mailing to the same bouncing email address, you’re going to get..you got it..junk foldered. Maybe even blocked.

And really, best practices require that if you are sending email “from” somewhere, then, it should be a real somewhere which can receive replies - and that someone is monitoring.

Yes, there are big companies who do this. Guess what, these big companies actually have deliverability problems.

A much better solution is to figure out a way to monitor the email address from which you are sending that email - even if it goes to a unique folder on your end that you monitor less frequently than your regular mail queue (although even that is less than ideal - if you want your company to have a stellar reputation, you should be handling all non-spam email that comes in to you).

And then, use a “From:” address that’s much friendlier and welcoming than “noreply”.