Description
Role-based email addresses (like admin@, help@, sales@) are addresses that are not associated with a particular person, but rather with a company, department, or group. These addresses are not intended for personal use as they typically include a distribution list of multiple recipients.
Why it's important
It's not surprising that these are choice targets for spammers: easily obtained from the internet. Senders with a high percentage of role-based accounts on their list(s) are at higher risk of being blocked for using a harvested or purchased list.
Key issues:
- Distribution lists: Since role-based accounts are typically sent to more than one person, it's difficult to prove consent for each recipient
- Spam traps: Honeypot spam traps use role-based accounts to blacklist senders who email them
- Automatic blocking: By default, blacklist providers like Spamhaus will treat any email sent to these addresses as spam since they report it was obtained and used without permission
- Reputation impact: Using role-based accounts increases the risk of spam complaints and reduces sender reputation
Your email provider's protection
We maintain a master suppression list of over 400 common role-based addresses. While the complete list is not made public, we can tell you that it's updated frequently to ensure our clients maintain a high level of email delivery.
Related articles
- Mastering deliverability basics - Best practices
- Managing account suspensions - Role-based risks
- Creating and managing a contact list - Avoid role-based addresses
- Importing contacts - Filter role-based emails
- Understanding complaints, bounces and unsubscribes - Role-based email complaints