What are the pros and cons of maintaining a list of domains and role addresses to never send emails to?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from StackOverflow explains that one can build a 'do not send' list automatically by listening to bouncebacks. If there's a hard bounce with a permanent failure type then it's likely that the address is invalid or deliberately set to block you.
Email marketer from Litmus recommends that removing addresses from your list promptly as part of an unsubscribe process to avoid future email sending which may cause legal issues and damage brand reputation.
Email marketer from Quora explains that sending to spam trap addresses can severely damage your sender reputation. A 'never send' list helps avoid these traps, leading to improved deliverability. It's a proactive approach to maintaining a clean and healthy email list.
Email marketer from Sendinblue Blog emphasizes the importance of email list hygiene, including removing invalid or inactive addresses. This includes role-based addresses that are less likely to convert and may increase spam complaints, ultimately affecting deliverability rates.
Email marketer from HubSpot Blog shares that while not directly related to 'never send' lists, proper segmentation and targeting avoids sending irrelevant emails to recipients. This improves engagement and sender reputation, reducing the need to aggressively suppress addresses. This is because sending relevant content decreases the likelihood of users marking emails as spam or unsubscribing.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that blocking emails to addresses like removals@spamhaus.org might prevent a 'bad' sender from being listed. However, Alison argues, it's better to allow senders to make mistakes to catch and fix the root cause. She would use this signal as a reason to start a compliance conversation, rather than silently blackholing it.
Email marketer from Reddit suggests on a Reddit thread that adding role-based emails to a 'do-not-mail' list avoids potential spam complaints. They mention it's more effective to contact a specific person rather than a general role account for marketing purposes.
Email marketer from Neil Patel's Blog explains that cleaning your email list by removing inactive or problematic addresses improves your sender reputation, which leads to better deliverability. Sending to role addresses often results in low engagement, negatively impacting your overall email performance.
Email marketer from Email on Acid answers that sending to role addresses may negatively impact the sender’s email domain reputation, since email engagement rates can be lower for role addresses. Also, these emails may be marked as spam more frequently.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource (John Levine) explains that sending marketing emails to role accounts like abuse@ or postmaster@ is generally a bad idea. These accounts are meant for administrative purposes, and sending them unsolicited marketing material is likely to result in complaints.
Expert from Word to the Wise (Laura Atkins) shares that maintaining a comprehensive suppression list is crucial for email deliverability. It prevents sending to known complainers, unsubscribes, and other problematic addresses, protecting sender reputation and improving engagement rates.
Expert from Email Geeks shares how silently propping up deliverability by filtering out the bad stuff can backfire. This is because it can soften indicators, allowing bad actors to masquerade as mostly good ones and sneak in garbage messages.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that a list of "never send to" domains is controversial and potentially unneeded for senders with proper permission practices. They suggest compiling a domain deny list from blocklist lookup tools and lists of blocklists, assuming legitimate users will sign up with personal addresses.
Expert from Word to the Wise (Dennis Dayman) shares that one must not send to trap addresses, harvested emails and to addresses without consent. These email types will damage domain reputation and decrease deliverability.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft states that exceeding email sending limits can impact sender’s domain reputation. It's important to filter the list and not send to emails that are likely to cause bounces or are invalid.
Documentation from Mailchimp recommends regularly cleaning your list to remove unengaged subscribers and addresses that could harm your sender reputation. They advise against sending to role-based addresses, as they often lead to spam complaints and low engagement.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools outlines that keeping spam rates low is vital for deliverability to Gmail users. Sending to known problematic domains and addresses increases the risk of exceeding spam thresholds, negatively impacting sender reputation and deliverability.
Documentation from SparkPost details that suppression lists, including those for role addresses and known complainers, are crucial for maintaining good deliverability. It prevents sending to addresses that are likely to generate negative engagement signals, which can harm sender reputation.
Documentation from RFC Editor specifies standard mailbox names (role accounts) like 'abuse,' 'postmaster,' etc., that should be handled carefully. It's often better to monitor these addresses rather than sending marketing emails, as they serve important administrative functions.