What causes bounces when emailing noreply addresses?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Litmus shares that noreply addresses prevent senders from accurately processing bounces, leading to continued sending to invalid addresses, which damages sender reputation and increases the likelihood of being blocked or bounced by ISPs.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that the use of noreply addresses can negatively impact sender reputation, as it prevents engagement and feedback loops, leading to potential filtering or bounces.
Email marketer from Sendinblue shares that sending to noreply addresses can lead to bounces because these addresses are often unmonitored or configured to reject incoming mail, resulting in a hard bounce.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that noreply addresses are used to prevent recipients from replying to automated emails, often used for newsletters or system notifications.
Email marketer from Campaign Monitor explains that using a noreply address can frustrate customers and suggests using a real, monitored email address or a contact form instead to encourage engagement and handle inquiries effectively.
Email marketer from StackExchange explains that users often perceive noreply addresses as impersonal and indicates a lack of willingness to communicate, and such emails are more likely to be ignored or marked as spam, causing bounces due to low engagement.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that the bounce occurred because the email was sent to a noreply address and suggests finding another way to contact them.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares that one of the key reasons to avoid using noreply addresses is that it prevents you from receiving important bounce notifications, which can lead to poor list hygiene and increased bounce rates over time.
Email marketer from EmailOnAcid explains that sending to noreply addresses can harm deliverability, as ISPs monitor engagement metrics and low engagement rates with noreply emails may flag the sender as less trustworthy, potentially increasing bounce rates.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource suggests avoiding 'no-reply' addresses as they prevent important bounce processing and recommends implementing proper bounce handling and using monitored addresses for better engagement.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that no-reply addresses do not allow feedback loops or bounce processing. This hinders list hygiene and prevents you from improving your email program.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests to review the bounce message to understand the cause of the bounce.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Validity (formerly ReturnPath) explains that email address validation tools often flag noreply addresses as risky due to their potential for bounces and lack of engagement, impacting sender reputation and leading to deliverability issues.
Documentation from RFC Editor details SMTP standards which outlines the format of email addresses and server behavior, and explains that while technically a 'noreply' address can exist, servers are configured to reject messages to these addresses, resulting in a bounce.
Documentation from Microsoft Support answers that Non-Delivery Reports (NDRs) can occur when sending to 'noreply' addresses because these addresses are often set up to automatically reject any incoming emails, as they are not intended for communication.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that a bounce from a 'noreply' address often occurs because the receiving server is configured to automatically reject all incoming messages to that address, indicating the mailbox is not monitored.