Summary
Role-based email addresses, such as info@ or sales@, present significant challenges for email deliverability due to their shared nature and potential as spam traps. These addresses frequently lead to higher bounce rates, increased abuse complaints, and poor engagement. While some small businesses may legitimately use them for specific sign-ups, the general consensus among email marketing experts and ESPs is to avoid sending marketing or promotional content to them. Many major ESPs actively suppress these addresses, and industry guidelines recommend against their use for bulk mail, especially for RFC-defined technical roles like postmaster@ or abuse@. Effective handling requires rigorous list hygiene, careful consideration of consent, and potentially, suppression unless there is clear, ongoing engagement.
Key findings
- High Deliverability Risk: Role-based email addresses (e.g., info@, sales@, admin@) are widely considered detrimental to email deliverability due to their propensity for higher bounce rates, increased spam complaints, and lower engagement compared to individual addresses.
- Common Spam Traps: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and anti-abuse groups frequently configure common role-based addresses as spam traps, specifically to identify senders with poor list hygiene. Sending marketing emails to these can result in immediate spam flags, reputational damage, and blocklisting.
- Shared Inboxes & Consent Issues: These addresses are typically managed by multiple individuals, making it difficult to secure explicit consent from all potential recipients or to track individual engagement effectively. This often leads to higher complaint rates and unmonitored unsubscribe requests.
- ESP Suppression Policies: Many leading Email Service Providers (ESPs) like Mailchimp, SendGrid, Mailgun, and ActiveCampaign explicitly advise against sending marketing content to role-based addresses, and some even automatically suppress or clean them from marketing lists to protect sender reputation.
- RFC Defined Technical Roles: RFC 2142 defines specific administrative role-based addresses such as postmaster@, abuse@, and hostmaster@, which are intended for technical or error reporting purposes. Sending unsolicited marketing emails to these addresses is not their intended use and significantly undermines deliverability.
Key considerations
- Prioritize Consent: For any role-based address, explicit consent for marketing content is paramount. Continuously monitor engagement, and promptly suppress any unengaged role-based addresses to maintain list health.
- Suppress Administrative Roles: Adhere to industry standards like RFC 2142 by suppressing technical and administrative role-based addresses, such as postmaster@, abuse@, hostmaster@, and webmaster@, from all marketing lists. These are not intended for promotional content and are high-risk for deliverability.
- Assess Context for Legitimate Use: While generally risky, some small businesses legitimately use role-based accounts like accounting@ or info@ for certain sign-ups. The context of their subscription should be carefully considered, but this does not negate the overall higher risk profile.
- Monitor Engagement Closely: If you choose to retain any role-based addresses on your list, closely monitor their engagement. Some marketers maintain these addresses only if they show recent opens or clicks within a defined timeframe, such as 90 days.
- Acknowledge Personalization Challenges: Recognize that personalizing content and tracking individual engagement is significantly more challenging for shared role-based inboxes, which can impact campaign effectiveness and overall deliverability metrics.
What email marketers say
12 marketer opinions
Email marketing specialists and providers consistently advise against sending promotional messages to role-based email addresses due to their inherent risks to deliverability. These addresses, such as info@ or sales@, frequently result in elevated bounce rates and a higher incidence of abuse complaints, largely because they are often forwarded to multiple recipients or configured as spam traps by Internet Service Providers. This shared nature makes it challenging to ascertain genuine consent from all recipients, effectively personalize content, or accurately track individual engagement. Leading Email Service Providers commonly warn against their use for marketing and may even automatically suppress these addresses to safeguard sender reputations.
Key opinions
- Elevated Risk Profile: Role-based email addresses are widely recognized by email marketers as posing a significant risk to deliverability, often leading to increased bounce rates, higher complaint rates, and reduced engagement.
- Frequent Spam Trap Targets: ISPs frequently configure these general addresses, like admin@ or info@, as spam traps, making them a primary means to identify senders with poor list hygiene. Sending to them can result in immediate spam flags and blocklisting.
- Impaired Consent & Tracking: The shared nature of role-based mailboxes complicates the process of obtaining explicit consent from all potential recipients and makes it nearly impossible to track individual engagement or manage unsubscribe requests effectively.
- Widespread ESP Disapproval: Major Email Service Providers, including Mailchimp, SendGrid, and ActiveCampaign, strongly discourage or automatically suppress marketing emails sent to role-based addresses to protect the sender's reputation and maintain overall system health.
- Negative Impact on Sender Reputation: Persistent sending to these problematic addresses increases the likelihood of spam complaints, directly harming the sender's reputation and potentially leading to a broader negative impact on deliverability across all campaigns.
Key considerations
- Avoid Marketing Content: The prevailing advice from experts is to avoid sending marketing or promotional content to any role-based email address due to their high-risk nature and potential for deliverability issues.
- Monitor Engagement Critically: For any role-based address that might remain on a list, rigorous monitoring of engagement is crucial. Some experts suggest retaining only those that have shown recent activity, such as an open or click within a 90-day window.
- Implement Aggressive Suppression: It is highly recommended to suppress or automatically clean role-based addresses from marketing lists, especially technical ones like postmaster@, webmaster@, or abuse@, which are not intended for bulk commercial email.
- Prioritize Individual Consent: Given the difficulty in confirming consent for shared inboxes, prioritize obtaining individual, verifiable opt-ins whenever possible, as this mitigates the risk of complaints.
- Acknowledge Personalization Limitations: Recognize that the inability to personalize content for a specific individual and the challenge of measuring true engagement for shared mailboxes diminish the effectiveness of campaigns sent to these addresses.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that role-based email addresses are equally awful for email deliverability.
2 Feb 2022 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that practices for handling role-based email addresses differ among ESPs, with some suppressing technical addresses like postmaster@, webmaster@, and abuse@, while others do not. They personally suppress all unless legitimate subscriptions are proven.
24 May 2023 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
While some small businesses might legitimately use general role-based email addresses like 'info@' or 'accounting@' for specific sign-ups, email deliverability experts largely agree that sending bulk or marketing communications to such addresses carries substantial risks. This is particularly true for technical role-based accounts like 'abuse@', 'postmaster@', or 'webmaster@', which are often unmonitored, managed by uninterested parties, or function as spam traps. Messages sent to these addresses frequently lead to high bounce rates, an elevated number of spam complaints, and poor engagement, ultimately jeopardizing sender reputation and increasing the likelihood of blocklisting. The consensus is to avoid including these addresses in bulk mailing lists, with the context of the sender and the specific role account determining the severity of the risk.
Key opinions
- Varying Risk Levels: The risk associated with sending to role-based addresses varies, with technical accounts (e.g., abuse@, postmaster@) posing immediate and severe deliverability threats, while general accounts (e.g., info@, accounting@) may have limited, context-dependent legitimate uses.
- High Propensity for Complaints: Role-based inboxes are often unmonitored or forwarded to multiple individuals, increasing the likelihood of recipients marking unwanted marketing emails as spam, which directly harms sender reputation.
- Ineffective for Marketing: These addresses are generally unsuitable for marketing campaigns as they rarely reach individuals genuinely interested in promotional content, leading to low engagement, high bounce rates, and potential designation as spam traps.
- Contextual Considerations: While not universally recommended for marketing, some small businesses may have valid, non-bulk uses for generic role accounts. However, this does not negate the significant risks when used for mass communications.
Key considerations
- Exclude Technical Role Accounts: Strictly avoid sending any bulk or marketing emails to technical role-based addresses such as 'abuse@', 'postmaster@', 'hostmaster@', or 'webmaster@' due to their high risk for spam complaints and blocklisting.
- Exercise Caution with General Roles: For general role-based addresses like 'info@' or 'sales@', carefully evaluate the context of their subscription and maintain a cautious approach, as they are still prone to deliverability issues when used for mass marketing.
- Anticipate Low Engagement: Understand that even if deliverable, emails to role-based addresses typically yield very low engagement, which can negatively impact overall campaign performance and sender metrics.
- Prioritize List Hygiene: Regularly clean your email lists to remove role-based addresses, especially if they are unengaged or fall into the high-risk technical categories, to protect your sender reputation and improve deliverability.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks explains that small businesses often legitimately use role-based accounts like 'accounting' for logins or 'info' for various sign-ups, and email to these addresses can be legitimate. She emphasizes that the context, whether it's an ESP or the actual sender, matters for assessing risk.
21 May 2023 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Spam Resource explains that sending bulk mail to role-based addresses like abuse@, hostmaster@, or postmaster@ is generally problematic. These accounts are often unmonitored or forward to multiple individuals, leading to a high likelihood of spam complaints and low engagement. He advises against including such addresses in bulk mailing lists.
24 Oct 2024 - Spam Resource
What the documentation says
5 technical articles
Industry standards and leading email service providers consistently warn that sending marketing content to role-based email addresses carries substantial risks to deliverability and sender reputation. Specifically, RFC 2142 identifies certain administrative roles like 'postmaster' or 'abuse' as unsuitable for unsolicited mail. Providers such as Google and Microsoft reinforce the importance of genuine recipient consent and engagement, highlighting that emails sent without it, particularly to shared or administrative inboxes, are prone to being filtered, marked as spam, or leading to severe reputational damage. Best practices from organizations like M3AAWG further emphasize robust list hygiene to avoid these high-risk addresses.
Key findings
- RFC Defined Misuse: Technical role-based addresses, as defined by RFC 2142, are intended for administrative or error reporting, not unsolicited marketing, and sending to them violates their purpose.
- Direct Deliverability Impact: Sending marketing emails to these addresses can result in immediate filtering, being ignored, or classified as spam by recipients and email systems.
- Consent and Engagement Imperative: Major providers like Google and Microsoft stress that the absence of explicit, individual consent and genuine engagement for marketing content, especially with role-based addresses, significantly undermines deliverability and sender reputation.
- Reputation Damage: Unsolicited mail to role-based addresses can lead to increased complaint rates, aggressive filtering, and blocklisting, severely harming a sender's reputation across all email campaigns.
- Spam Trap Risk: Industry best practices implicitly warn that common role-based addresses can function as spam traps, and including them in marketing lists indicates poor hygiene, leading to deliverability issues.
Key considerations
- Adhere to RFC Standards: Strictly suppress role-based addresses like 'postmaster', 'abuse', and 'hostmaster' from marketing lists, aligning with RFC 2142 guidelines for their intended administrative use.
- Prioritize Individual Consent: Always prioritize obtaining explicit, individual consent for marketing communications, as major providers view unsolicited mail, particularly to shared inboxes, as a significant deliverability risk.
- Rigorous List Hygiene: Implement robust list cleaning practices to identify and remove all high-risk role-based addresses, as they are frequently used as spam traps and contribute to poor sender reputation.
- Understand Provider Policies: Be aware that Google, Microsoft, and other major ISPs will aggressively filter or block emails sent to addresses without clear engagement or explicit consent, a policy that heavily impacts role-based addresses.
- Avoid Unsolicited Marketing: Understand that sending unsolicited marketing emails to any role-based address is counterproductive, as it leads to low engagement, high complaints, and severe damage to overall email deliverability.
Technical article
Email marketer from Email Geeks points to RFC 2142, which provides technical definitions for certain role-based email addresses that should be suppressed.
25 Aug 2024 - Email Geeks
Technical article
Documentation from IETF (via RFC 2142) explains that standard role-based addresses like 'postmaster', 'hostmaster', and 'abuse' are specifically defined for administrative and error reporting purposes. Sending unsolicited marketing emails to these addresses is not their intended use and can lead to them being filtered, ignored, or marked as spam due to their functional nature, thereby undermining deliverability.
24 Apr 2022 - RFC 2142
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