Email From Address vs Reply to Address

Kevin_McMahon1 · ‎02-01-2018

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!

SanfordWhiteman · ‎02-01-2018

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:.

View solution in original post

Kevin_McMahon1 · ‎02-02-2018

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.

JD_Nelson · ‎02-02-2018

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 · ‎02-01-2018

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:.

JD_Nelson · ‎02-02-2018

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.

what does that mean in English? Branded Sender is an add-on somewhere? I get way fewer OOO at my current company (%-wise) than I've seen other places --- I'm wondering if I'm missing some somewhere? (Josh will tell me to get Siftrock, I'm sure -- )

SanfordWhiteman · ‎02-02-2018

Branded Sender is an add-on somewhere? I get way fewer OOO at my current company (%-wise) than I've seen other places --- I'm wondering if I'm missing some somewhere?

Right, branded sender is an (extra $) add-on to a Marketo subscription.

It allows you to choose the envelope domain -- the domain from which emails are sent at the true SMTP level. For default subscriptions, this domain is something.mktomail.com. And because this domain isn't hosted by you, standards-compliant Out of Office messages are going to Marketo and you'll never see them. So you definitely are missing some!

Grégoire_Miche2 · ‎02-01-2018

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

JD_Nelson · ‎02-01-2018

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 · ‎02-01-2018

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.