Today’s deliverability tip comes to you hot-on-the trails of a retail mini-saga that unfolded for me this week with a large, well known online retailer. The saga could have been easily downgraded to a minor glitch, had it not been for the fact that I kept receiving alarming emails, all from “do not reply”. It served as a good reminder that not only can “do not reply” email addresses be incredibly frustrating if some sort of alternate communication option is not provided, but they can also affect your email deliverability! Often these “no reply” email addresses are, in fact, non-existent email addresses.
As per our email deliverability handbook: It isn’t just spammers who send email from non-existent email addresses – completely legitimate companies mistakenly do this too. You may see a registration confirmation or message which says “Do not reply to this email, instead contact us at foo@bar.com”, and in these cases the “from” address of that email is often not a real email address which can actually be verified by the receiving ISP.
This is an unwise practice, guaranteed to cause you trouble. It’s an almost sure sign of spam (or a clueless sender) to a receiver, and highly likely to cause you deliverability issues. Some ISPs even check at the HELO to determine whether the sending address exists on the sending server.
I hope this email finds you on the verge of a fantastic weekend!
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