Email deliverability is of critical importance because you get to ensure that you send your emails to their intended audience. Deliverability can be affected by a number of factors. Let’s talk about one common factor, Role-based Email Addresses.

What is a Role-based Email Address?

• Role addresses are organizational email addresses associated with a certain function, responsibility, position or department and not with an individual.
• They are mostly managed by more than one individual and mostly have a distribution list. That means the email sent to a role address actually will be shared with everyone on the distribution list.
• Also known as role-based email addresses or role email addresses, role addresses are different from other email addresses in that they do not represent a specific individual. Addresses like support@ , info@ or hiring@ are examples of role addresses. They’re often broadcast or redistributed to a number of individuals.

Problems associated with role-addresses

• You’ll face a higher bounce rate
• You could be blacklisted
• You fall short of compliance
• Your risks are disproportionate

Here is a great, and brief, article on the risks of a role-based email address. We always recommend named users, and sparing use of a Group (collaborative inbox) for these role-based addresses. A role-based email should NEVER be an individual’s private email address.