Summary
Managing role-based email addresses effectively within your suppression filters is a critical aspect of maintaining strong email deliverability and protecting your sender reputation. Role-based email addresses (like info@, admin@, or support@) are often associated with higher bounce rates and spam complaints because they typically do not belong to a single individual who has explicitly opted in to receive marketing communications. Incorrectly handling these addresses can lead to poor inbox placement and even blacklisting.
Key findings
- Higher risk: Role-based email addresses are more prone to generating hard bounces or spam complaints compared to personal email addresses. This is because they are often unmonitored or managed by multiple people, making direct consent challenging.
- Impact on reputation: Sending to role-based addresses can negatively impact your sender reputation due to increased bounce rates, potential spam trap hits (if old and unmonitored), and complaint rates. This can lead to your emails being filtered into the spam folder or even your domain or IP being added to a blocklist.
- Standardization: There are widely accepted lists of common role-based accounts (as outlined in RFC 2142), which can serve as a starting point for your suppression efforts.
- Suppression essential: Implementing robust suppression filters for these addresses is crucial for maintaining good list hygiene and protecting your sending reputation.
- Context matters: While generally advisable to suppress, certain transactional or service-related communications might necessitate sending to specific role-based addresses. Consider the type of email before applying a blanket suppression.
Key considerations
- Comprehensive lists: Utilize existing comprehensive lists of role-based email local parts (e.g., abuse@, postmaster@, webmaster@) as a foundation for your suppression filters. Higher Logic also notes the impact. For more on the risks, see our page on deliverability risks of role-based addresses.
- Separate suppression for B2B: If you manage both B2B and B2C email programs, consider maintaining separate suppression lists to account for differing deliverability requirements and expectations related to role-based addresses in business contexts.
- Regular review of bounce logs: Manually or programmatically review your bounce logs to identify frequently bouncing role-based addresses or domains, as well as typo domains that might lead to spam traps. For more on bounce management, refer to our guide on managing hard bounced email addresses.
- Automation: Automate the suppression of role-based addresses whenever possible within your ESP to minimize manual effort and ensure consistency.
- List hygiene: Beyond role-based addresses, regularly clean your email list by removing inactive recipients, hard bounces, and addresses that generate spam complaints. This is key for overall email suppression list management.
What email marketers say
Email marketers widely agree on the importance of suppressing role-based email addresses to safeguard sender reputation and optimize campaign performance. While the primary goal is often to avoid high bounce rates and spam traps, some marketers consider nuances for B2B communications versus B2C. The general consensus points towards proactive management and careful list segmentation.
Key opinions
- Default suppression: Many marketers automatically suppress known role-based email addresses from their mailing lists, especially for marketing campaigns, due to their low engagement and high risk profiles.
- Separate lists: For different audience segments (like B2B vs. B2C), maintaining separate email suppression lists is a common strategy to tailor deliverability practices. This allows for specific rules around role-based accounts.
- Beyond role-based: Effective suppression extends beyond just role-based addresses to include typo domains and other potential spam traps, emphasizing continuous list hygiene.
- Risk mitigation: Marketers emphasize that avoiding role-based emails protects sender reputation by reducing bounces and spam complaints, which are common issues.
- Validation first: Before sending, many recommend verifying and cleaning email lists to proactively remove problematic addresses, including role-based ones.
Key considerations
- B2B vs B2C approach: Assess whether your B2B clients have different needs for receiving emails at role-based addresses compared to B2C subscribers. This might justify different suppression rules.
- Automated suppression: Leverage ESP features to automatically manage suppression lists based on predefined rules, minimizing manual intervention. This includes managing spam complaints and unsubscribes.
- Continuous monitoring: Regularly monitor bounce logs and suppression reports to identify new role-based addresses or typo domains that need to be added to your blocklist. More on email blocklists here.
- Double opt-in: Implement double opt-in processes to ensure subscribers genuinely wish to receive your emails, reducing the likelihood of role-based addresses ending up on your active lists. This is a best practice for avoiding role-based emails as discussed by Bounceless blog.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks indicates that they manage suppressions independently by having two separate ESP organizations, allowing for distinct management of their suppression lists.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks states they manually review and aggregate bounce logs from their ESP vendor. They also focus on identifying top typo domains to reduce typo trap hits, noting that their current typo trap report is higher than desired.
What the experts say
Experts in email deliverability underscore the critical nature of comprehensive role-based email address management for maintaining strong sender reputation. They advocate for leveraging standardized lists and caution against overlooking subtle risks like typo domains. Their insights often combine technical understanding with practical advice, emphasizing that a proactive approach is always best.
Key opinions
- RFC compliance: Experts often refer to RFCs (Request for Comments) as authoritative sources for lists of common role-based accounts, suggesting their use as foundational suppression data.
- Beyond standard lists: While standard lists are helpful, experts advise careful consideration before suppressing all addresses on such lists, as some might be legitimate for specific communications.
- Typo trap reduction: Actively seeking out and suppressing typo domains found in bounce logs is crucial to avoid hitting spam traps, a practice many experts highlight.
- Proactive hygiene: The focus should be on proactive email list hygiene, which includes identifying and filtering out bot-generated or suspicious email addresses before they impact deliverability. See our guide on identifying suspicious email addresses.
Key considerations
- Leverage comprehensive lists: Utilize robust, publicly available lists of role-based email addresses (such as those found on GitHub) as a starting point for building your suppression filters.
- Contextual suppression: While general suppression is advised, a nuanced approach might be necessary for specific transactional emails where recipients expect to receive communications at a role-based address. Consider the impact on transactional emails.
- Automated processes: Implement automated systems to identify and suppress role-based and problematic email addresses to prevent deliverability issues. This is part of identifying high-risk email addresses.
- Regular updates: Keep your suppression lists updated, including new variations of role-based addresses and domains that show signs of being problematic, such as those associated with spam traps.
Expert view
Email expert from Email Geeks suggests that an RFC might be helpful in identifying role-based email addresses, indicating it serves as a foundational resource for such definitions.
Expert view
Email expert from Email Geeks provides a link to a large list of role-based email addresses. They advise checking if all addresses on the list truly need to be discarded for suppression filters, though they personally would suppress most.
What the documentation says
Official documentation and technical standards (like RFCs) provide the foundational definitions and recommendations for handling role-based email addresses. These documents specify commonly accepted role account names and highlight the reasons why these addresses are treated differently in email communication. They serve as essential guidelines for building robust and compliant email suppression systems.
Key findings
- RFC 2142 standard: RFC 2142 defines a list of well-known mailboxes that should be present on every host, such as postmaster, hostmaster, and webmaster.
- Purpose of role accounts: These accounts are intended for administrative, technical, or specific functional purposes rather than personal communication, which makes them unsuitable for bulk marketing sends.
- Community lists: Beyond formal RFCs, community-driven lists (e.g., GitHub repositories) provide extensive collections of role-based addresses compiled from various sources, reflecting real-world observations.
- Deliverability risks: Documentation often implies or explicitly states that sending to role-based addresses can lead to deliverability issues such as hard bounces or increased spam complaints, contributing to poor sender reputation.
Key considerations
- Adherence to standards: Base your initial suppression lists on well-established standards like RFC 2142 to cover the most common and critical role-based addresses. For more on RFCs and email sending, check our blog.
- Leverage community data: Utilize comprehensive GitHub lists to expand your suppression filters beyond the core RFC-defined list. These provide broader coverage of problematic addresses.
- Automated system integration: Integrate these lists into your ESP's suppression logic to automatically filter out role-based accounts from marketing campaigns, ensuring consistent application of policies. This aligns with practices for filtering bot email addresses.
- Contextual exceptions: While strict suppression is generally recommended for marketing, technical documentation often acknowledges that certain system-generated or transactional emails may legitimately be sent to specific role-based addresses (e.g., security alerts to abuse@). Review these cases carefully.
Technical article
The Internet Engineering Task Force RFC 2142 specifies that certain well-known mailboxes should be present at each host. These include common role-based addresses like postmaster, hostmaster, abuse, and webmaster.
Technical article
Documentation from Higher Logic emphasizes the need to understand role-based email addresses because they behave differently from individual addresses. They suggest special handling when adding them to contact lists.
Related resources
11 resources
Related pages
What are the deliverability risks and handling practices for role-based email addresses?
How to manage hard bounced email addresses for future sends?
How do I validate email addresses and maintain a clean email list?
What is an email blacklist and how does it work?
Spam traps: what they are and how they work
What are the pros and cons of maintaining a list of domains and role addresses to never send emails to?
How can I identify and prevent suspicious or bot-generated email addresses in my lists?
Why your emails are going to spam in 2024 and how to fix it
Will suppression lists prevent transactional emails from being delivered?
How to identify high risk email addresses to delete from my ESP?
