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Kevin_McMahon1
Kevin_McMahon1
New Participant
February 1, 2018
Solved

Email From Address vs Reply to Address

  • February 1, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 16634 views

Hi guys,

I'm sending out an email coming from an employee's email address, let's say kevin@abc.com. I don't want his inbox to get bombarded with any email bounce messages. OOO messages are fine.

If I add the personal email address in the Email From Address, do I run the risk of his inbox taking a large hit?

The Reply to Email Address is only for actual replies correct? Automatic replies, like OOO, are sent to the address in the From Email Address correct?

Thanks in advance!

    Best answer by SanfordWhiteman

    Automatic replies, like OOO, are sent to the address in the From Email Address correct?

    OoO responses can go to 1 of 3 addresses:

    • The SMTP envelope sender, usually <uniqueidentifier>@*.mktomail.com.  You will not receive such responses unless you have branded sender on your subscription. This is the correct destination for auto-responses, but unfortunately it's often ignored.
    • The From: address. This isn't the technically correct place, but in the real world is a common destination, the main offender being Exchange servers.
    • The Reply-To: address. This is extremely rare, but some misconfigured software will hit the Reply-To:. You don't have to worry about this.

    I don't believe different From: and Reply-To: addresses @ the same domain pose any risk vis-à-vis spam detection in 2018. In the old days, when I was on the spamfighting side, we used to counterweight on matching From: and Reply-To: but I don't know if anybody cares about that anymore.

    What I think is the main concern is professionalism. While splitting From: and Reply-To: will spare the employee some (perhaps a lot of) mess, it shifts the mess to the public sphere. IMO, non-matching addresses just looks untidy. Instead I would use Josh's approach and have a single proxy mailbox for both From: and Reply-To:.

    3 replies

    Kevin_McMahon1
    Kevin_McMahon1Author
    New Participant
    February 2, 2018

    Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm all for best practices so I'll setup a proxy and use it for the from and reply-to.

    J
    JDNelson1
    Community Manager
    February 2, 2018

    Just make sure someone monitors it. I use proxy for our C-level execs and I'll be darned if a year later I don't get an email to that inbox from an important source that updated their contact list when we used it.

      SanfordWhiteman
      SanfordWhitemanAccepted solution
      New Participant
      February 2, 2018

      Automatic replies, like OOO, are sent to the address in the From Email Address correct?

      OoO responses can go to 1 of 3 addresses:

      • The SMTP envelope sender, usually <uniqueidentifier>@*.mktomail.com.  You will not receive such responses unless you have branded sender on your subscription. This is the correct destination for auto-responses, but unfortunately it's often ignored.
      • The From: address. This isn't the technically correct place, but in the real world is a common destination, the main offender being Exchange servers.
      • The Reply-To: address. This is extremely rare, but some misconfigured software will hit the Reply-To:. You don't have to worry about this.

      I don't believe different From: and Reply-To: addresses @ the same domain pose any risk vis-à-vis spam detection in 2018. In the old days, when I was on the spamfighting side, we used to counterweight on matching From: and Reply-To: but I don't know if anybody cares about that anymore.

      What I think is the main concern is professionalism. While splitting From: and Reply-To: will spare the employee some (perhaps a lot of) mess, it shifts the mess to the public sphere. IMO, non-matching addresses just looks untidy. Instead I would use Josh's approach and have a single proxy mailbox for both From: and Reply-To:.

      Grégoire_Miche2
      Grégoire_Miche2
      New Participant
      February 2, 2018

      Agreed, we also usually create a proxy for the email address and use it for both the from and reply-to. This is the method that yields the best results.

      -Greg

        J
        JDNelson1
        Community Manager
        February 1, 2018

        Correct. However, I've also seen some spam filters that look at them both and if they are different sometimes it's a spam trap... something to be aware of.

        Josh_Hill13
        Josh_Hill13
        New Participant
        February 2, 2018

        You mean it will flag it as spam.

        Example:

        From: Josh Hill <josh@company.com>

        ReplyTo: events@company.com

        I see this alot.

        Now, if you use Siftrock, you can filter out replies regardless of the chosen email box. Some setup required.

        You could also create a "fake box" like

        real box: josh.hill@company.com

        proxy box: josh.d.hill@company.com >> you control this and forward the real replies to the real Josh.

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