Sending email from a no-reply? Don’t.
Why do brands use a no-reply@domainname.com as their reply-to? And why should you avoid it at all costs?
It’s easy to look at other brands with rose-colored lenses, and think “if Google does it, why shouldn’t we?”.
When it comes to building relationships and prioritizing them, sending from a no-reply email address and using it as your reply-to is a sure-fire way to tell your customers you don’t care about them, and to other email marketers, that you don’t care about deliverability.
Sending from a no-reply can result in these scenarios that I will breakdown:
Poor deliverability
Bad customer experience
Unmonitored replies
I’ll conclude this article with answers to popular questions and arguments that I’ve been faced with in regards to those that advocate for using a no-reply (usually someone that is not in the email world).
We get too many responses to our emails, oftentimes automatic out-of-office replies - this causes more work on our team to filter and respond to them. Sending from a no-reply is easiest.
Google sends some of their emails from a no-reply, and they are the best in the business!
We don’t want anyone to reply to this email.
The prelude
Email succeeded due to it being a two-way experience. It wasn’t successful because it was used as a one-way pipeline for brands to yell at their consumers. Email was used between two recipients, communicating back and forth. Similar to how SMS marketing is invading our personal phone numbers, email originated with the same experience. ISP’s like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook have had to take it upon themselves to build things like the spam or junk folder, in order to better the user experience. Email is meant to be used for building a relationship.
So, when a no-reply address is used, you’re signaling to ISP’s (and consumers alike) that you don’t care about that two-way relationship.
Some brands can get away with it with ISP’s, but is it worth risking your relationship with your consumers?
As a fellow email geek once told me on this topic:
“It's like having social media but just posting and never replying to comments.”
Poor deliverability
When you think of emailing a no-reply address, you probably assume that there is no inbox on the other side. Therefore if you were to reply to one of those emails, it would bounce back. Gross!
However, most often, your no-reply is going to lead to an automatic response from you that says something along the lines of “this inbox is not monitored, please reach out to ___ if you have any questions or concerns”. Depending on my mood and how desperate I am to get in contact with someone, I might hit the mark as spam button. Direct reputation hit served. Although this is fairly unlikely, creating an avenue for engagement (replies), is one of the best indicators ISP’s use to get you as a sender prioritized into inboxes.
Replies = engagement. Engagement = what the ISP’s look for to determine if this is an email your customers recognize and trust. Trusted emails = a better chance of inbox placement.
I tested replying back to some no-reply emails below with some fake scenarios to see what kind of experience they’d give me.
SKIMS (Kim Kardashians clothing brand). Skims uses a no-reply on all marketing comms. I wanted to know when the long slip dress would be back in stock, because I was interested in buying 100 of them.
The review. For being a brand that is so put together aesthetically, this no-reply is not. it. But, I guess when you are Kim Kardashian and you have all the money and success in the world, you don’t need to prioritize the user experience for those wanting to purchase your clothes (no shade, I love her brand and am always aghast with how all her items are fully sold out, so she’s doing something great clearly).
Would I escalate to Karen status and mark as spam?
Probably not, but still lame.
Squarespace. I received an email from Squarespace reminding me that I have a friends and family unique discount code that I can share for 20% off a subscription should my friends and family want to build a website of their own. The dynamic value is pasted in the email, with T+C’s that it expires in approximately two weeks. In this hypothetical scenario I replied with a message saying my code wasn’t working, and wanted help to refer my friend with the code.
The review. This is a pretty poor experience in my opinion. If the company was geared to expanding their user base with vetted referrals, shouldn’t you give this email an opportunity to communicate back to support?
Would I escalate to Karen status and mark as spam?
No, but I won’t be sharing my referral code since it isn’t working and I don’t want to spend the time and energy reaching out to the Customer Support Center (hypothetically in this scenario I am lazy).
Wave. Wave is an online invoicing and online account tool. They sent out an account update email regarding a security vulnerability in Java (log4j). In their own words: This vulnerability is the result of the widespread use of a free tool (log4j) that many programs use to log information. If an attacker causes the free tool to log a specifically crafted message, it can take over the system that the free tool is hosted on. The reason this vulnerability is considered critical is both because of the tool's widespread use, and because it's extremely easy to exploit. At Wave, you will be happy to know that we don't rely on log4j for the apps that you use. We conducted a full code review on Friday to validate that Wave’s apps aren't impacted. So, what’s the relevance to me??
The review. I received no auto-reply, no bounce back. I am in some sort of weird email-reply limbo where I live here alone, with no acknowledgement.
Would I escalate to Karen status and mark as spam?
No but I am le confused why this email was sent and how it relates to my Wave account.
Bad customer experience
Now that I’ve walked you through some odd, hypothetical user experiences where I tried to reply to a no-reply, let’s talk about it.
Email is an owned channel. It gives marketers the potential to reach a user at just the right time, with just the right content. So, why wouldn’t you want to give the ability back to your subscribers to reach you at the right time, with the content that matters most? Do you CARE, at ALL?
When a customer receives an email with the above scenario message that immediately tells them the inbox is unmonitored, they’ll probably give up reaching out. Who wants to jump through hoops to reach support?
People reply to whichever channel is right in front of them. It gives you as a brand or business the opportunity to catch website errors, escalate issues they are having, or catch lost revenue. An automated no-reply address is a great way to show that as a brand you aren’t interested in what the consumer has to say.
But by giving your customer a route to engage with, you can be building relationships that will turn into long term advocates.
unmonitored replies
All inboxes should be monitored to some degree.
Every time someone replies to a no-reply, you lose a lot of good information by ignoring replies. In most cases, sles. By losing out on building that relationship, you’re losing out on a lot.
You’re losing out on building a relationship,
You’re losing out on building an advocate,
And you’re losing out on building retention.
Monitoring replies gives you the ability to catch website errors, broken links, typos, all of it. At the end of the day, hearing from your customers should be one of the most important things you do as a business to scale, find market value, and expand retention efforts.
You are given the opportunity to turn a negative experience, into a positive one. Email is meant to be a two-way street.
FAQ’s
We get too many responses to our emails, oftentimes automatic out-of-office replies - this causes more work on our team to filter and respond to them. Sending from a no-reply is easiest.
Take replies as a win. If you are becoming inundated with OOO replies, or the alternate “this ___ is no longer with x company” look into if your Customer Support platforms offers the ability to filter out automatic responses to your emails either based on key word, or subject line. Most do. And if they don’t, look into a new Customer Support tool. There is too much competition on the market to settle for a tool that doesn’t deal with the most common problem with email-replies.
Google sends some of their emails from a no-reply, and they are the best in the business!
Why are you looking at Google as best in class? Are you/your business trying to be the next Google? Is Google famous for a fantastic Customer Support experience? Does Google need to build a better customer experience, or do they already have a following that they don’t need to fight for? Ask yourself these questions when comparing. Just because the emails, the website, and the product look nice, doesn’t mean the user experience is equally as so. If you want to retain your subscribers and give your customers an avenue to speak to you, look at what leaning on a no-reply could do to push the opposite.
We don’t want anyone to reply to this email.
Why?
See answer to question 1.
