We’ve all seen them, either in our own inboxes or as part of our digital marketing strategies. Emails with a “no-reply” in the “From” field were once a common email marketing practice, but now it’s a big no-no.
A no-reply email address is an address in your domain that’s not set up to receive incoming mail. On the surface, this might seem like a great way to avoid clogging up your inbox from bounced emails and out-of-office notifications, but no-reply email addresses are bad for digital marketing.
No-reply email addresses create a poor customer experience.
The best email marketing strategies are like one-on-one conversations with individual customers. However, if your customers can’t respond to you with questions or concerns, it isn’t much of a conversation. A one-sided email conversation is a sure way to lose engaged contacts.
Twenty-five percent of consumers have opted out of brand emails because of a lack of human touch.
Use a valid “From” address instead of a no-reply email address.
Rather than using a no-reply email address, you should set up a custom address to be used for sending emails that are linked to your company. If you have multiple departments sending emails, you can even set up multiple addresses from which you send your emails. For instance, tech support information can come from “[email protected],” while your email newsletter could be sent from “[email protected].”
Your email service provider will have tools that allow you to customize the address in your “From” field.
This inbox will likely receive a handful of bounce notifications and out-of-office replies. It’ll also receive legitimate questions and concerns from customers. Set up an autoresponder email that lets your customers know that you got their message and set up this reply to BCC someone on your team so they follow up.
How to measure no-reply email addresses
The only way to measure the impact of using a no-reply email address is to run an A/B test. Split your audience, so you’re sending one group a no-reply email address and a valid “From” address to another group and compare your results.
You should pay attention to your open rates and engagement to see if your customers are more trusting of a message with a valid return address.
Instances where no-reply emails are okay
- Automated transactional emails: Order confirmations, password resets, or shipping notifications that require no action from the recipient.
- System notifications: Alerts about account changes, such as successful logins or updates to terms of service, where a response is unnecessary.
- Event reminders: Automated reminders for webinars, appointments, or scheduled maintenance.
Instances where consumers appreciate a reply option
- Customer feedback requests: Surveys or feedback requests should allow recipients to respond or provide input.
- Marketing campaigns: Promotional emails or newsletters where customers might have questions or want more information.
- Service issues: Any communication related to service problems, billing issues, or cancellations should offer a way to reply for support.
Does it really matter?
In the short term, changing your no-reply email address probably won’t have an immediate impact on your email marketing results. However, this one simple change could go a long way toward building personal connections with your leads, which could help increase revenue in the long run.
What now?
Now that you know why no-reply email addresses can be harmful to your marketing efforts, you should consider creating new, valid inboxes from which you can send your emails. This process should only take you a few minutes in your ESP. It might be best to just start with one—you can customize multiple inboxes down the road if you build up your email marketing strategy.
And, while you’re thinking about changes to your strategy, you should also check out a few other factors that might help you improve your email deliverability.