Look at almost any list of business customers or subscribers and you will find them: info@, sales@, contact@, support@, hr@. They are valid addresses, often typed into a sign-up or checkout form by a small business. Should you send to them?

The short answer: usually yes, with care. They rarely bounce, but they behave differently from a person's inbox. This article explains why and when to keep them.

What a role-based address is

A role-based (or role) address belongs to a function, not to a person. It is usually read by a team, forwarded to several people, or connected to a ticketing tool. Common examples:

  • General contact: info@, contact@, office@, team@
  • Sales and marketing: sales@, marketing@, press@
  • Support: support@, help@
  • Admin and finance: admin@, billing@, finance@, orders@, legal@, privacy@
  • Jobs: hr@, jobs@, careers@
  • Technical: noreply@, no-reply@, security@

Why role addresses are different

They are shared

When you write to info@company.com, your email may be read by five people, or by an automatic system that turns it into a support ticket. The person who signed up may not be the one who reads it, so opens and replies are lower.

One complaint is enough

A newsletter in a shared inbox has many chances to be marked as spam: any of the readers can click the button, even if a colleague signed up. Spam complaints count more than almost anything else for your sender reputation (Gmail asks senders to stay under 0.1%), so watch how role addresses perform.

Some are never read

noreply@ and no-reply@ exist only to send. Messages to them are usually discarded or bounced. Technical addresses such as security@ or privacy@ are read for one purpose only.

They show up in forms where they don't belong

People type info@ or test@ into sign-up forms to avoid giving their own address. Those sign-ups rarely become real readers.

When it makes sense to send to them

  • Customers and people who signed up. If someone bought or subscribed with contact@theirshop.com, it is their address: send them what they asked for.
  • Very small businesses. At a company of three people, info@ is often the owner's main inbox.
  • The role matches your message. Invoices to billing@, order updates to orders@, a press release to press@ for journalists who asked for it.
  • Transactional email of any kind: receipts, password resets, account notices.

When to leave them out

  • noreply@ and technical addresses, always: nobody reads them.
  • Sign-ups that look fake, such as test@, admin@ or info@ on a big free webmail domain.
  • A new sending domain that has no reputation yet: start with your most engaged, named subscribers, and add role addresses once your results are steady.
  • Role addresses that never open after several sends: remove them like any other inactive contact.

How to find role addresses in your list

Verification flags them. MailQuell checks the mailbox like any other address, then marks it role instead of safe. The address can receive mail; the label tells you it is a shared inbox. When you download results, you choose: safe only, or safe together with role addresses. The send forecast also treats role addresses as a little riskier than personal ones, so you can see the effect of including them before you send.

Without an account, the free email list organizer groups a pasted list by company and highlights role addresses by type (sales, general contact, HR, support, admin, technical) right in your browser, without uploading the list.

Stop them at the door

The easiest role addresses to handle are the ones that never reach your list. Checking the address on your sign-up form tells the visitor right away when they type noreply@ or a throwaway inbox, and lets real customers who use info@ through. See the email verification API for how that works.

Frequently asked questions

Do role addresses bounce more often?

Not much: most are real, active inboxes. Their risk is lower engagement and spam complaints, not bounces. That is why verification marks them role and not invalid.

Can I email a role address under GDPR?

Data protection rules mainly protect information about individual people. A generic company address such as info@ is usually less sensitive than a person's address, but rules on marketing email (consent, opt-out) apply to it too and differ by country. Check the rules for the countries you send to.

Is support@ a spam trap?

No. Spam traps are hidden addresses that nobody uses (see what spam traps are). support@ is a real inbox, read by real people, which is exactly why unwanted email there gets reported.

Try it