Everyone seems to have an opinion about “no-reply” email addresses. If you read the usual commentary, you’ll find almost no one speaking in their favour - it’s all “no-reply is bad,” “it’s unfriendly,” “it kills engagement.”
But here’s the interesting bit: there is no empirical evidence anywhere that a no-reply address causes lower performance or worse deliverability. None.
So I thought I’d do a simple experiment.
I went to my own inbox and picked 10 brands whose newsletters or marketing emails used a reply-able address. I hit reply on each of them with a simple “thanks for the newsletter.”
Here’s what happened:
- 3 messages bounced completely - the reply-to address didn’t exist.
- 2 sent me an auto-response:
- One said “thank you, we’ll get back to you within 24 hours.”
- The other basically said “don’t reply, here’s our customer service link.”
- 5 brands? Complete silence.
No acknowledgment, no bounce, no response at all.
That got me thinking.
Instead of debating no-reply vs. reply-able addresses over and over again, maybe the question should be:
What is best practice for handling replies?
If you’re going to use a reply-able address, then you owe it to your subscribers to deliver on that promise. If you can’t, no-reply is probably the more honest option.
So let me take a stab at defining best practice:
1. Your reply-to address must actually exist. No excuses for hard bounces.
2. Auto-response is essential. At the very least, acknowledge receipt and set expectations.
3. Set realistic reply expectations. If you can’t respond within 24–48 hours, say so.
4. If you won’t actually monitor replies, don’t fake it. That’s worse than no-reply.
5. Analyse replies. They’re a source of real user sentiment, even if you don’t get many.
6. Consider AI tools. They can triage, summarise, or even answer automatically at scale.
In short: no-reply is a matter of expectation.
If you cannot reply, it’s better to be upfront. If you can reply, then reply properly.
And if anyone has a real, evidence-based study showing that no-reply addresses truly harm email performance, I’d love to see it.