What are the pros and cons of maintaining a list of domains and role addresses to never send emails to?

Maintaining a 'never send' list of domains and role addresses is a double-edged sword. Experts, marketers, and documentation agree it improves sender reputation, deliverability, and engagement by avoiding spam traps, role accounts, and known complainers. Regularly cleaning lists, implementing suppression lists, and adhering to permission practices are crucial. However, some argue that aggressive suppression can mask underlying list collection problems, hindering compliance conversations and potentially harming deliverability if not carefully managed. Proper segmentation, monitoring bouncebacks, and prioritizing relevance are key to balancing proactive suppression with a nuanced approach. Not sending to harvested addresses or without consent will damage deliverability, as will exceeding sending limits.

Maintaining a 'never send' list, which includes specific domains, role-based email addresses (like abuse@ or postmaster@), and known spam traps, presents both advantages and disadvantages for email marketers. Proponents argue it enhances sender reputation by preventing emails from reaching addresses likely to generate complaints, bounces, or low engagement. This proactive approach reduces the risk of being blocklisted and improves overall deliverability. Cleaning lists and using suppressions avoids sending to trap addresses, harvested emails and to addresses without consent. Conversely, some suggest a more nuanced approach, advocating for permission-based marketing and proper segmentation to send relevant content. Silently blocking addresses without understanding the underlying issue can mask problems with list collection processes and hinder opportunities for compliance conversations. The consensus leans towards cautious and targeted suppression rather than blanket blocking, emphasizing the importance of email list hygiene and adapting strategies based on feedback mechanisms like bouncebacks and unsubscribe requests.

Experts have differing views on maintaining a 'never send' list of domains and role addresses. Some believe that if proper permission practices are in place, such lists are unnecessary. Compiling a domain deny list from blocklist resources is suggested. However, silently filtering out 'bad' addresses can be counterproductive, masking underlying problems and allowing bad actors to exploit the system. Sending marketing emails to role accounts like abuse@ and postmaster@ is generally discouraged due to their administrative purpose. Conversely, maintaining a comprehensive suppression list, which includes known complainers, unsubscribes, and spam traps, is deemed crucial for protecting sender reputation and improving deliverability. Sending to harvested addresses or without consent also severely damages email deliverability.

Email service providers and documentation sources generally recommend maintaining lists to suppress sending to certain domains and role addresses for optimal deliverability. Regularly cleaning lists to remove unengaged subscribers, role-based addresses (like 'abuse' or 'postmaster'), and known complainers is vital for maintaining a good sender reputation. Sending to these addresses leads to spam complaints, low engagement, and exceeding spam rate thresholds, negatively impacting deliverability, particularly to Gmail users. Standard mailbox names need to be handled carefully, often best monitored instead of targeted for marketing. Sending limits should be respected by filtering out high risk emails like bounces, invalid emails and unengaged users.